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Hi all,

I've just been musing over potential Eldar lists in 7th and, although I'm liking the Psychic Spam, I'm having a few problems deciding if certain things are good anymore.

Firstly, Fire Prisms. These things were pretty good in 6th (at least on paper, I never had great success with them) but now I'm not so sure. They can't Jink anymore without forgoing proper shooting (let's face it, they're next to useless when Snap Shooting) and, unlike Wave Serpents, they don't have any shields to back them up. All they can hope for is decent cover, or else they're sitting on a measly 6+ cover save. How do they figure?

Now Fire Prisms were my go-to Anti Tank, but I'd never had huge success with them, so I think I may shelve them for now, so how do I deal with AV13/14. Warp Spiders shred AV10-12 all day long, and can actually do alright against tougher things if they're weak at the back, but I'm really unsure of how I'm going to take down Land Raiders and the like.

Wraithknights were my first thought but, I'll be frank, I have pretty much every Eldar unit that was released prior to the current codex and, with enough money spent on the army already, I have no wish to fork out on a Wraithknight.

I did think that Dual Bright Lance War Walkers could do alright, as mathhammer states a unit of 3 should do 2 glances/pens a turn, provided no cover. A Crimson Hunter Exarch was another option. I know a lot of people don't like them, but I've had pretty good success with them in the past, and the anti-flyer capabilities can free up my WS/Spiders. However, the fact that Pulse Laser hasn't got Lance leaves half of the Hunter's shots practically redundant (needing a 6 to glance). I'd also thought of doing the Laughing God Jetbike Autarch I've wanted to do for ages, but, I confess, I don't own a 7th edition rulebook and have no idea how Hit & Run or Jink with Jetbikes works in the new edition.

So, fellow Space Elves, how are you taking down Land Raiders this edition?

Dragons in a wave serpent does well for me, just have to find a way to keep your opponents attention off of them.

I sympathize with the loss of the prism, having run 2 in almost every Eldar list since 4th. We no longer have our holo fields of the old days, or the jink without losing the shot. A smart player will force our hand so we end up with S9 snap lances at armor...

However, the rest of our codex has plenty of good options for AT. Fragons as said above are classic, and spiders as you mentioned. I could see shining spears making a bit of a comback. They can glance any AV, and any weak rear armor will die to mass S6 and S8. Since jink only impacts shooting on the next turn, they can jink for 3+ cover(skilled rider) and then just charge next time. Hawks still wreck shop with a potential 2' charge and haywire devastation. Hunters work too, but if you have to pull AA duty your hunter will not be shooting at heavy stuff right away.

Walkers and lords are good lance platforms, but I could see myself swapping my guardian weapons from scatters to lances as well.

Mantle autarchs with fusion guns are still solid, but don't forget our psykers. Singing spears are a bargain for a nasty S9 shot. Critical on laughingseers, I take them on any seer I field.

2xBL War Walkers (x3) will reliably blow up OR strip HPs a vehicle a turn. Also does halfway decent against Terminators.

Spiders DSing in, using Battle Focus to get that S7 on vehicle butts is good against many targets but falls flat against Land Raiders, Monoliths and such...

Hawks with No-ScatterDS in behind line of sight blockage, then 18-24 charge next turn with Haywire (nothing strips HPs better than Haywire).

Avatar, wait what? Really! +10 for Fast Shot so it makes him BS10, Melta, Assault 2! ...yea it's only a foot but that's what the Eldar run-shoot is good for.

Crimson Hunter, for many of its' other drawbacks,it has this in it's favor; the Exarch version really has to roll Badly to NOT destroy its' intended target.

Hawks + Hawywire grenades = win. That's my go to. 2nd go to for reliability goes to FireDragons for me.

 syypher wrote:
Hawks + Hawywire grenades = win. That's my go to. 2nd go to for reliability goes to FireDragons for me.

I would never use hawks as my go to anti tank. Thats more of a side buff. Any smart player can manuver his tanks away or just get around the los blocking terrain (which is the only reason they would be alive in the first palce) and shoot them.

Hawk haywire grenades are a good threat in being, which helps control the battle, but will almost never get to assault a tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And avatar doesn't have Battle Focus

The avatar does have battle focus

Bharring wrote:
Hawk haywire grenades are a good threat in being, which helps control the battle, but will almost never get to assault a tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And avatar doesn't have Battle Focus

Yes he does.

My ranking of Heavy AT as I use it goes;

Wraithknight - Str10 is just too rare and useful
Swooping Hawks - pinch hitters, never leave home without them. I had a squad of 6 assault and kill an Imperial Knight in the last tournament I went to.
Bright Lance Guardians - whenever I take guardians, they get a BL
War Walkers - Dual bright lances. I take a single squad of two when I take them.
D-Cannons - I have a battery of 3 that I sometimes use. The range isnt great, but against vehicles, it's very rare they'll get a miss.
Seer-council - S9 Spears and a bucketload of Armourbane attacks. I've not had anything with an AV not die to them in CC.
Fire Dragons - I take them rarely.
Avatar - Two BS10 Melta shots and the now nerfed smash attack.
Wraithlords - I take mine with dual bright lances. That plus S9 in combat makes them pretty good, albeit slow.

Run corsair allies. Deepstrike some WG in near enemy tanks and blow the crap out of them. Not cheap, but you then are left with a bunch of WG in the enemy lines. You can also DS FDs, but you really need the fire pike and this edition really did a number on point cost for that and FDs in general.

Ive written this in another thread, but ive also been following this one. Not so much specific for AT, but as the guy above mentioned DSing WG.

Im running DE allies with Duke and the tantalus (FW), as its not a dedicated transport I can mount 7 WG a spiritseer and a archon (16 capacity) into it and DS it down in to the enemy ranks. thats a pretty nasty unit too, with a shadowfield for tanking wounds, archon for monster CC and the wraiths for blowing everything apart. its an expensive setup, but should be awesome fun

with the whole allies in vehicles in 7th theres soo much potential for DE vehicles. Just a shame we cant mount units in raiders in reserves.

you can then also field ravagers, although the effectiveness of dark lance stuff has dropped a little. But 3 dark lance shots a turn should be some nice AT dakka that eldar can access with ease.

Hold on, someone said we no longer have holo fields for Fire Prisms. Was something changed in 7th?! Hope not.

Otherwise I can see some people taking hits on tanks if they know they will have to make an important shot next turn. I was reading a Dark Eldar post, trying to learn their weaknesses and tactics, and aw people saying they'd use a single lance to make us Jink then just ignore the tank. So that's a tactic to watch out for too.

To stay on topic, I'm building my first list on return to the game after a good few years. I'm rebuilding my Ulthwe Eldar, and the following units will be my AV:

1) Lots of bright lances. I'll be running two 20 strong Guardian units, both with two bright lances each. I'm going to buy a Crimson Hunter too, to deal with AA and ground armour too.

2) Warp Spiders and plenty of shuriken cannons for light AV. These units (I will also be using two Vypers as I still have them from the 90s and will use them before getting the force I'd ideally like) are fast and manoeuvrable enough to get to side and rear armour.

3) Witch Blades and Singing Spears. A Warlock will be in both Guardian units and also my Windrider unit. Both Farseers will also be armed with spears. That's a lot of armourbane - some fast moving and able to get side or rear armour.

4) I have a Wraithknight I magnetised but it will be mainly in larger battles for fluff reasons, and even then probably will use the sun cannon option.

As a side note, does anyone who played Eldar back in 2nd remember the vehicle upgrades? I remembered the other day that we used to get crystalline spiders which repaired tanks, similar to the Tau automated repair system.

Thanks for the tips guys.

I hadn't really considered Swooping Hawks, nor the good ol' Fire Dragons in a Serpent that I used so much in 5th, so perhaps I'll give them a whirl.

War Walkers also seem to be quite popular, it's 40k game night for me tomorrow so I might swap the Hunter out for them, and see how they perform. Most people seem to be suggesting units of 2? Any particular reason for that? I guess that extra 70 points could go quite a way to fitting in a Swooping Hawk Squadron. Also, does anyone have any experience with Star Engines on War Walkers? It's an extra 15pts per Walker, but the extra +3" to Run allows for much easier shenanigans with LOS blocking cover (or any decent bit of cover). Move, shoot, run back inside, you know the drill.

Good shout on the Guardian squads as well. I've always run a unit of 10 guardians with a Bright Lance (which does do fairly well actually) as a unit to hold back and sit on objectives. I know anyone can do that now, but old habits and all that.

Dark Eldar allies and FW has some good combos but, though I'm seriously tempted by Dark Eldar, I don't think buying more models is the best idea (I've got the new Orks to consider as well...)

Thanks for the help guys, keep the discussion going and I'll post back with how well by Anti-Armour got in my battle (though knowing my luck I'll end up fighting Nids)

 Bhazakhain wrote:
Hold on, someone said we no longer have holo fields for Fire Prisms. Was something changed in 7th?! Hope not.

Ya....Now if you jink you have to snap fire....So fire prisms are quite sub par now.

Oh yeah I know about the new jinking. I take it holo fields still improve that by +1 after moving? Does make them less reliable though. We'll see more bright lances in Guardian units and on walkers now I think.

The solution is volume. Put so many tanks out there that even if half of them are jinking, you still have 4 that can shoot.

As far as anti heavy tank, I reeeeeealy like warp hunters. 1st they are beautiful models. 2 you can load 3 of them up with 2x pulse lasers for the same price you can buy 2 2 BL walkers. At that point all you have to do is maneuver behind the really heavy stuff. If that fails, I keep a squad of wraithguard in one of my wave serpents.... unload and fire = dead land raider.

 Bhazakhain wrote:
Oh yeah I know about the new jinking. I take it holo fields still improve that by +1 after moving? Does make them less reliable though. We'll see more bright lances in Guardian units and on walkers now I think.

I dont think holo fields are worth taking now. Especially with your fire prisms, as jinking makes them near useless for a turn. Better to have gwm so you dont have to jink

emmagine wrote:
The solution is volume. Put so many tanks out there that even if half of them are jinking, you still have 4 that can shoot.

As far as anti heavy tank, I reeeeeealy like warp hunters. 1st they are beautiful models. 2 you can load 3 of them up with 2x pulse lasers for the same price you can buy 2 2 BL walkers. At that point all you have to do is maneuver behind the really heavy stuff. If that fails, I keep a squad of wraithguard in one of my wave serpents.... unload and fire = dead land raider.

I think you mean hornents

Holofields can still be somewhat useful on long range tanks that can utilize cover provided by things other than Jink.

But currenlty the best anti-tank are probably War Walkers with twin Lances or Hornet interceptors with Lances or Pulse Lasers.

Fire Dragons are good to have with the possible proliferation of AV 14 coming back to tables

Holofields are even better than they were on Serpents if you're using them as a dedicated transport for your valuable troops, not solely as a gunboat...just sayin'.

Yeah, I'm still running Holo-Fields on Wave Serpents. It's useful for when you're hugging cover outside of Jink, most commonly when hiding on the first turn, if you're going second. You just have to be a bit more careful with them now.

Anyway, as promised, I had a game yesterday and tried out some new anti-tank. It was 1500 against a gun-line Tau army (though he did have some Kroot, which was a little different).

I ultimately lost the game, but the unit of 3 War Walkers with 2 BLs that I took did well. They took out a Hammerhead Turn 1 and, though two died in revenge fire, the remaining one managed to ID a broadside (huzzah!).

The Swooping Hawks did meh. The no-scatter is awesome, and their grenade pack took out a nice handful of Fire Warriors, but they all died to the return fire. I think next time I may take an Exarch with a Sunrifle. BS2 + AP3 + Blind seems pretty awesome to me.

I got one word. Revenant Titan.

The Fire Prism is definitely NOT where it's at anymore. Fire a LasCannon or 2 at it, to make it jink, don't even need to cause HP damage to make it snap fire its' -1- shot next turn and lose it's blast effect completely.

If you can keep it in good cover, you won't need to jink but, you'll probably lose a lot of forward visibilty to targets.

Man... I'm glad I just got that 1 old Prism and didn't buy a new one, real pretty paper weight now.

2xBL War Walkers are where it's at now. Maybe Wraithknights but, I've never tried them out.

At 1500pt today I ran...

Soiritseer

Wraithguard in TLSC HF Wave Serpent
Wraithguard in TLSC HF Wave Serpent
Wraithscythe in TLSC HF Wave Serpent

Wraithknight
Wraithknight


And had no trouble taking out a Mech Guard list with 4 Lemon Ruses(Pask Punisher), 2 Wyrems, 3 Chimeras. I think he had a couple of foot squads, some auto Cannon Heavy weapon teams, and a Command squad.

Wave Serpents took out the Chimeras, Wraithknights and wraith guard took out the Lemon ruses.

knightofkob wrote:I got one word. Revenant Titan.

Zagman wrote:At 1500pt today I ran...

Soiritseer

Wraithguard in TLSC HF Wave Serpent
Wraithguard in TLSC HF Wave Serpent
Wraithscythe in TLSC HF Wave Serpent

Wraithknight
Wraithknight


And had no trouble taking out a Mech Guard list with 4 Lemon Ruses(Pask Punisher), 2 Wyrems, 3 Chimeras. I think he had a couple of foot squads, some auto Cannon Heavy weapon teams, and a Command squad.

Wave Serpents took out the Chimeras, Wraithknights and wraith guard took out the Lemon ruses.

Even if I wanted to use a Revenant Titan, its price is a little out of my budget. The same applies to a Wraith list, as good at anti-tank as it may be. I own only 5 WG, and no Wraithknights, and don't wish to spend much more!

I think the best thing about wraithknights is that even if you take the suncannon, they have a decent chance to wreck anything with its 5 S10 attacks on the charge + 1 S10 HoW.

I haven't had many games of 7th ed yet, but tactics seem roughly the same, just got to stack the odds more in my favour.

War walkers, mainly four, in 2 groups of 2, with dual brithlances. should not off a few HP's a turn for heavies.

Then more war walkers with scatter laser/star cannon out flanking for side armour shots.

Warp spiders and get bikes for more S6 goodness.

Spam shots in side armour again.

Backed up by a farseer, and Autarch.

Goatseer wrote:
I haven't had many games of 7th ed yet, but tactics seem roughly the same, just got to stack the odds more in my favour.

War walkers, mainly four, in 2 groups of 2, with dual brithlances. should not off a few HP's a turn for heavies.

Then more war walkers with scatter laser/star cannon out flanking for side armour shots.

Warp spiders and get bikes for more S6 goodness.

Spam shots in side armour again.

Backed up by a farseer, and Autarch.

Again, units of two War Walkers. I'm starting to see the benefits of of our open-topped friends, but why units of two?

I have plenty of Warp Spiders already though, they're literally my favourite thing to use in wargaming. Jetbikes usually feature in my lists as well.

And how do you use the Autarch? Jetbike + Mantle + Fusion Gun?

 The Shadow wrote:

Again, units of two War Walkers. I'm starting to see the benefits of of our open-topped friends, but why units of two?

In 2k points, I'll be running around 9. 4 lots of 2, 1 by its self. 2 lots of dual lances, 2 lots of scatter/star, and one double scatter.

I find 2 to be a bit more manageable. Maybe a bit more consistant. if its 3 or 1, luck can be a huge factor, so it could be overkilling/underkilling things. 2 Lets me mostly gurantee a HP gone from a vehicle, but 3 can't gurantee its dead (will check maths later on that). Sometimes 3 scatters and 3 star cannons, might be too much too finish one squad. More squads/groups helps with outflanking too, having more options, as not relying on just 1 dice have units rock up and to be able to get those side shots.

Defensively, I find it better too. 3 becomes unwieldy, hard to hide them all, no matter how you stack them. And for getting shot it works better too. Some times you don't really have control over things, such as enemy deep strikers, so its better to have the 2 units of 2. As some dedicated AT rocking up is'nt likely to care wither there are 2 or 3 Open topped armour 10 gun batteries in front of them and will quickly knock them all off.

Target saturation is a huge issue/exploit for me tacitly. I fear no elite army, as I feel I can manipulate what I'll trade off with them, but give me too many options and I might make a mistake.

 The Shadow wrote:
I have plenty of Warp Spiders already though, they're literally my favourite thing to use in wargaming. Jetbikes usually feature in my lists as well.

I can't believe how good they are, faster, hit harder and cheaper. They were already rediculously fast and shooty too. I urge all all eldar players to give them a shot. I would run 2 squads of 10, when they are 250+pts, now you can do more for less than 200.

I need to buy more jetbikes and warp spiders. Put down the wave serpents and get warp spidering people.

 The Shadow wrote:

And how do you use the Autarch? Jetbike + Mantle + Fusion Gun?

 Zagman wrote:

Wave Serpents took out the Chimeras, Wraithknights and wraith guard took out the Lemon ruses.

?

Belly wrote:

 Zagman wrote:

Wave Serpents took out the Chimeras, Wraithknights and wraith guard took out the Lemon ruses.

Spoiler:

?

HAHA That is full of win.