Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

First off, I'll already say that my lists are rarely spectacular. I play DA, and I like to run a lot of terminators. I just played a thousand point game against eldar, and found myself very screwed. I had:

Termie librarian
DW knights
Termie squad with 2x TH/SS, and cyclone missile on a claws one

Black knights

Scout snipers
Tac squad

So yeah, a fluffy casual list that I threw together 5 minutes before the game. Heavy melee focus with all the terminators, my main shooting power being the knights.

Is there any decent strategy that a melee oriented list like this can stand up to eldar? I don't remember his specific list, but it had a lot of warp spiders, a wave serpent w/ avengers, a falcon, a wraithlord, and bikes.

Literally the entire game was me chasing him around without much luck. My bikes were the first casualties, my DW knights took out the wraith and avengers but got gunned down chasing the two tanks. Regular termies couldn't get the spiders in LOS and died after a few turns. It was literally just my scouts and tac marines hiding in buildings the last 2 turns, the scouts my only unit at the end (they had a 2+ cover from my warlord trait and camo cloaks).

So really, is there any chance for a slow terminator army to stand a chance against fast eldar? Outside of "stop playing terminators they suck", any decent advice on what I can improve? I know a large part was bad saves with the bikes and standard terminators, and really bad shooting against the falcon, but even then I couldn't catch the spiders. I will throw in a second bike squad next time, maybe a rhino or drop pod. Honestly one of my worst defeats, like I only killed a third of his army and survived with 2 scouts left.

As if you had any chances vs 6-th ed eldar with such a list.

But in all seriousness, i think that librarian is key. If you get something effective like a molten beam, you can murderise squads on the turn you come in. Than shoot at another target in hopes of causing as many morale checks as possible.

You're S-o-L on that matchup with your list. The Eldar are FAST, and your units are SLOW. You'll never get into close combat with them given that level of a disparity. Every time you get close I'm sure he just hoped away and shot you some more. Unfortunately, to remain Dark Angels and have a fighting chance you'll need a lot more ranged firepower, but even there you likely won't do very well (though still, better than currently).

In all honesty a melee based terminator list won't just struggle against eldar. It'll struggle against most lists. Terminators just don't stand up very well. And they're incredibly slow. The deathwing assault is nice.... But the problem is that you land, and then you have a turn of standing there which for us eldar player is more than enough time to end up half way across the board. The other answer is landraiders. But they're an incredible point sink and once you've assaulted you're back to problem number one again. Terminators are simply too slow as much as I want deathwing to work.

Slow and fragile for their cost.

I was thinking about losing the terminators, throwing in a cheap conclave, and going more on bikes and dev squads.... does that sound reasonable? Maybe a drop melta squad?

Forget devs; they'll just be gunned down by scatter lasers, shields, and warp spiders. And they can't move.

Or just going max bikes, a bike librarian with command squad and as many bikes and black knights as I can take, with room for a dev squad or two.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Forget devs; they'll just be gunned down by scatter lasers, shields, and warp spiders. And they can't move.

Do you recommend a pred then? I don't currently have any but a friend offered me some for dirt cheap (and well painted too!).

EDIT: I'm just worried about the warp spiders, as they're surprisingly good against anything that isn't a land raider

Bikes are faster, cheaper, more durable and shootier than spiders. And they're troops. If you meet something that's not bikers or serpents transporting melta / S: D consider yourself lucky.

Hey, new SM codex coming soon. Maybe terminators will get 2+ with a re-roll / 3++ as standard?

Certainly, something daft needs to happen if we are going to keep up with the Eldar.

 koooaei wrote:
Bikes are faster, cheaper, more durable and shootier than spiders. And they're troops. If you meet something that's not bikers or serpents transporting melta / S: D consider yourself lucky.

Keep in mind my bikes are crappy ravenwing ones, basically meaning slightly inferior to white scars and more expensive, and only troops if I take a specific 200 point model (Sammael). And my biggest issue with spiders is that he was making really good rolls on all his moves during the assault phase, so I struggled to keep them in range without putting my bikes out in the open where a the falcon gets easy shots on them. So the falcon forces them to jink and their shooting sucks for a turn, plus you almost have to jink when 10 spiders shoot at you, because that's 2 rending shots on average. I honestly do a lot better fighting other bike armies than I do spiders, because bikes have to stay in my LOS after they shoot, and have to end within charge range if they want to rapid fire.

I'd say go heavy bikers mayby some speeders and pods instead of devs ! You can also take 1 squad of termies , with moust of your army bikes elder will have harder time in running. But in all honestly eldars are nightmare for cc armies :(

 kingbobbito wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Bikes are faster, cheaper, more durable and shootier than spiders. And they're troops. If you meet something that's not bikers or serpents transporting melta / S: D consider yourself lucky.

Keep in mind my bikes are crappy ravenwing ones, basically meaning slightly inferior to white scars and more expensive, and only troops if I take a specific 200 point model (Sammael). And my biggest issue with spiders is that he was making really good rolls on all his moves during the assault phase, so I struggled to keep them in range without putting my bikes out in the open where a the falcon gets easy shots on them. So the falcon forces them to jink and their shooting sucks for a turn, plus you almost have to jink when 10 spiders shoot at you, because that's 2 rending shots on average. I honestly do a lot better fighting other bike armies than I do spiders, because bikes have to stay in my LOS after they shoot, and have to end within charge range if they want to rapid fire.

Talking bout jetbikes

With DA, you want to have shooty units. Missile launchers will force him to jink and have the range to make it happen. On the turn you come in you can lay down the hurt. CC just isn't going to happen when they can pew pew you from 24+ inches away.

I play BA, and I feel like I'm going to have the same problem. There's a guy around here who runs Eldar, and I haven't played him yet but I know that the day is coming. My list revolves around lots of small jump units with close combat weapons and some powerfits and meltaguns scattered throughout. I have a Stormraven and a TLLC razorback and am thinking about getting a tri-las or autolas pred here soon, but I don't know how effective that's going to be against Eldar. I don't run any drop pods because jump packs and assaulting vampires are cooler, but is this going to work against Eldar?

There's basically nothing in the BA codex that is going to work vs Eldar. So don't sweat it.

We're really that screwed, even though we're considered one of the faster armies in the game?