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Alright so it’s been a while since I’ve been on here.

My hardest opponent at the moment is eldar.

I ran into a list with this jet bike Death Star that’s buffed from some psychic powers from the enemies back line.

I think the unit is a seer council??? I don’t know for certain but I know when the unit is buffed with bonus to save, rerolls to hit, and a bunch of other bonuses these guys become super hard if not impossible to knock off the board.

He’s then also got usually 3 wave serpents and a hemlock and 2 crimsons hunter or 2-3 fire prisms. The wave serpents are usually a pain as my battle cannons and plasma weapons do little to no damage.

My guard army is a brigade and spear head. All cadian with 8 infantry squads and 6 leman russses. 3 scout sents with flamers, some mortar units and then officers to fill in the holes.

I have 1 psyker but he usually is just casting -1 on pask.

Any suggestions and tips for eldar?

I can hardly think of a way to win against that with guards. That list is tailored to win against gunlines with BS 4+, by using long ranged shooting with hit penalties and a big unit of shining spears that jumps through screens. If you focus down the spears, that leaves you exposed for too many turns to the linked fire of the prisms, and the crimson hunter aren't sleeping either. Your leman russes will be gone quickly.

Sorry, IG gunlines are powerful, but like all skewed lists they are prone to hard counters. That Eldar list is just the rock to your scissors.

 tankboy145 wrote:
Alright so it’s been a while since I’ve been on here.

My hardest opponent at the moment is eldar.

I ran into a list with this jet bike Death Star that’s buffed from some psychic powers from the enemies back line.

I think the unit is a seer council??? I don’t know for certain but I know when the unit is buffed with bonus to save, rerolls to hit, and a bunch of other bonuses these guys become super hard if not impossible to knock off the board.

He’s then also got usually 3 wave serpents and a hemlock and 2 crimsons hunter or 2-3 fire prisms. The wave serpents are usually a pain as my battle cannons and plasma weapons do little to no damage.

My guard army is a brigade and spear head. All cadian with 8 infantry squads and 6 leman russses. 3 scout sents with flamers, some mortar units and then officers to fill in the holes.

I have 1 psyker but he usually is just casting -1 on pask.

Any suggestions and tips for eldar?

Have you tried Scions? Counter drop in on the bikes and unload with plasma. Though just be aware you are almost guaranteed to lose one of those units to the Eldar stratagem the turn they drop in. Alternatively, keep them hidden in Los blocking terrain/transports then hop them out to engage the bikes when they get close. As long as you're within 12", the Alaitoc -1 goes away so you should be able to overcharge.

Aside from what Spoletta said there's four things I can think of:

Try to kill 1 fire prism first. The linked fire stratagem that makes them so lethal requires three prisms, without the strat they're resoundingly mediocre

Don't shoot wave serpents with D2/Dd3 weapons, use lascannons/meltas for those or just ignore them and kill the cargo. Serpents aren't that killy but are extremely durable, shoot a prism/flier instead.

When shooting the Spears or serpents with any type of serious firepower try to split fire between that unit and another target. Eldar can give a flying unit -1 to be hit with a stratagem, if you point all your plasma guns at the spears then guess where the strat goes. If you choose to split your fire (doesn't have to be 50/50) between say the spears and a hemlock then you make it much harder for your opponent to decide which unit to use the strat on, plus you waste less firepower when he does use it*.

I don't know if I'd recommend overcharging plasma at all against this army. A single -1 to hit makes a plasma shot as likely to hit as it is to kill the user in the hands of a guardsman



* sounds counter-intuitive, but I read it at Nick Nanavati's site as the thing to do in these situations. Thinking about it as someone plays wave serpents, this is indeed probably the best thing to do.


Edit: I actually listed 4 things instead of 2

Fire prism strategem actually seems to work with 2 fire prism. So if he has 3 he still can use it with 1 dead. Albeit he can't combine 3 for REALLY big hit.

and yeah no overcharge unless you have reroll or you are about to die anyway(I mean if you are facing up charge next turn anyway it's not really different do you blow up right away or get hacked next turn!)

So essentially his list is 3 wave serpents each with guardians inside then you’ve got eldrad and some other foot psyker in the wave serpents.

The fire prisms were dropped in last nights game for 2 crimson hunters and a hemlock. Those 3 alone were dropping russes like nothing. He usually uses them to focus on pask, and my vanquisher tankcommander and my executioner tank commander. Since those do the most damage to his vehicles.

Then he’s got that unit of spears he drops in turn 1, has the paykers drop out of the serpents and buffs the crap out of them. He’s also got I think two warlocks on bikes??? To help with buffs.

Lastly he has 3 units of rangers.

I have thought of using scions but plasma typically doesn’t do well against most of the stuff in his army. The spears are the only thing on the board worth targeting and even then they are buffed.

He also uses the trait that allows them to reroll charges, I think Sam hein or however it is. But regardless he conceals them for -1 and then tags them with the swiftness stratagem for -2 total. So I certainly try to split my fire up as if he stacks on them I will then just split my fire on something else.

Have you thought about driving some Hellhounds into his face?

Hellhounds don't care about minuses to hit and they have a 50% chance of inflicting mortal wounds on nearby enemies when they get killed.

Don't forget also that the astropath has the "no benefit from cover" (precognition, IIRC) ability (not a psychic power, it's automatic) which might come in handy. You might even consider two of them, if you want to do the split fire thing - always have two targets in mind. Start shooting at one of them (using the astropath). If your opponent uses the strategem, switch to your other target - if not, keep focus firing.

"Dis guy uses that super unit don't know which one as I can't open his codex and study his units and understand what is happening but pls halp"

You deserve to be punished, lazy mon'keigh.

But, if your opponent is running Eldrad (Ulthwe), guardians in Serpents, possibly an Alaitoc airwing and a Saim-Hann Shining spear bomb in the same list, then you're basically facing an eldar soup made of the most effective units in the whole CW codex. He is just missing an Ynnari detachment for a professional TFG stamp. A buffed unit of Spears is very hard to kill and screen against with IG, and airwing with penalties to hit is also very hard to take down for you.

There's little advice to give here except using most powerful things IG has itself.

Maybe aside from trying to outlast Eldar, if that's possible. Try to increase the amount of your infantry, since spears/prisms/flyers will eventually whittle down and kill your tanks, and 8-9 squads is possible to kill for Eldar. Also run lascannons instead of plasma, D2 or D:d3 weapons are weak against WS.

Also, concider that most buffs on Spears work only against shooting, as does their invulnerable save (although LFR stratagem can be used in CC, but that's another 2 CP). If you have something to murder T4, 3+ models in CC, do it. Take some spehhs marines, or, hell, grab Celestine as a countercharge unit. With her nice D2 sword and excellent mobility she could probably deal with some bikers.

As others have said, ignore the wave serpents unless a unit has literally no other decent targets. They soak up a ton of firepower, and they don’t hit that hard, so generally aren’t worth the effort to kill.
Focus on the air wing instead. Keep this in mind - the Hemlock is super nasty and gets close (due to the short range of its D Scythes and The eldar player’s temptation to use Smite) but it doesn’t really suffer much from a degrading profile, so you have to kill it outright to deal with it. Thus, I’d say you should focus fire the hunters first. They are potentially an even bigger threat to your tanks, but are much easier to bracket than the Hemlock. If he pops Lightning Reflexes on one plane, just switch your remaining fire to the other one. Try to bring each plane down a profile or two and your tanks will last much longer.

Other than that, not sure what to add, as I am an Eldar player, not IG. I will second the poster above who said this is a douchebaggy list. Picking the best units from the eldar codex and slotting them into detachments with different Craftworld tactics based on which rules benefit those units best is fine for tournaments, but decidedly uncool in a friendly game. Best of luck!

Shadenuat wrote:There's little advice to give here except using most powerful things IG has itself.

Seeing the full list; this, basically. I can feel my beard growing just by looking at this. Take the best stuff the imperium can buy and join the arms race or ask him if he'd be willing to tone it down a bit.


Btw, a unit that deep strikes can no longer make any move other than charging under the current rulebook faq. So if he drops his spears there's a decent chance they won't make the charge that turn, as he can't use the Quicken power on them (makes a bike/infantry unit move in the psychic phase, which deep striking units no longer can). They'd need to make a 9" charge, and if you make sure to screen properly all he will be able to charge is a squad of guardsmen (make sure there's >3" space between your screens and the rest of your army to prevent him from consolidating into combat after killing a screen on the turn he drops). If you also use the faq beta rules then he can also only drop his Spears in his deployment zone in his first turn.

Also note that the alaitoc trait he has on his flyers gives a -1 to hit for shooting attacks that originate more than 12" away. So in the case of a hemlock it might "only" get its native -1 to hit if it's close enough. But even then this does not sound like a fun army to play against at all, ymmv though.

tneva82 wrote:Fire prism strategem actually seems to work with 2 fire prism. So if he has 3 he still can use it with 1 dead. Albeit he can't combine 3 for REALLY big hit.

Thanks, I did not realize this! I apparently assumed it required 3 like the linebreaker and killshot ones and never bothered to actually check it (oops), good to know! I've been meaning to give it a try, and 2 prisms are easier to put in a list than 3.

Some things to try (you may already be doing these though)
Take Aim is the best order for your infantry in this case. Stand still, and re-roll all hits to counteract the -1 a bit
The cadian “overlapping fields of fire” stratagem will negate the -1 on something you’ve managed to get a wound on.
I assume you’re already taking Kurovs Aquilla, go ahead and spend a point to get Relic of Lost Cadia as well. Makes your shots more effective for a turn.
Remember your tanks get to re-roll ones too for being cadian. However, if you have enough tank commanders you could make a catchan tank detachment for your leman russes, and just give them the re-roll ones order. Only issue is they don’t benefit from “cadian only” stratagems, and the cadian order replicates the catachan re-roll # of shots ability anyway.
Hyper situational, but you could consider taking “old grudges” as a warlord trait if something absolutely needs to die. In this case though I think the extra CP recovery for strategems is worth more and there’s nothing that really stands out as the single worst thing.
Got any wyvrens? Those are useful against infantry and bike types.

@Shadenuat- I certainly wish I could study his army but time is very limited and the days that we have to game are rather short. But I am trying to make an effort to listen to more pod casts and battle reports to learn the army! Lol

One of my biggest weaknesses is I generally don’t have time to “research armies/study them” before I play them as I don’t have much extra free time. But now that I’m back on this site I’m gunna try to make an effort to read up on other armies.

Things I’ve been trying are to castle up and wait for the Spears or the rest of his army to close in and once it does I pop Relic of Lost Cadia to try and maximize on rerollings 1s to hit and wound.

My biggest issue is even when I screen with guardsmen his serpents combined with the guardians generally can clear screens.

Also when the spears drop in he’s been putting them in the back (since they can’t move now) and buffs the crap out of them. Then the following turn with how fast they are he sling shots them at whatever flank or weak spot he can find.

The flyers were a first when I fought them so now that I’m aware of what they do I will try to focus them to help keep the russes alive.

When I get a moment I will post my list up here so you can see what I’m running.

All the comments are much appreciated and help me a little bit understand them. Granted I’m general it’s just a tough list.


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1992 points
BRIGADE-CADIAN
HQ:
Company commander
Company commander
Primaris psyker
Tank commander-vanquisher, plasma cannons, lascannon

TROOPS:
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun
Infantry squad-plasma gun

ELITES:
platoon commander
Platoon commander
Tech-priest enginseer

FAST ATTACK:
Scout sentinel-heavy flamer
Scout sentinel-heavy flamer
Scout sentinel-heavy flamer

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Heavy weapons squad-x3 mortars
Heavy weapons squad-x3 mortars
Heavy weapons squad-x3 mortars

SPEAR HEAD-CADIAN
HQ:
Pask- battle tank, lascannon, multimeltas
Tank commander- executioner, plasma sponsons

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Punisher
Punisher
Battle tank