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Hey everyone, new player here. My friend and I both decided, after months of discussion, to get into WH40K. Without really much to go on besides my familiarity with the lore (from playing the RPGs and the Dawn of War games) we chose our armies primarily based on aesthetics and play style. We started out with the Dark Vengeance boxed set just to get some familiarity with the rules and some basic army components. I was planning on going for Chaos Marines anyway, so the Chaos portion of the set would be useful to me and the loyalists can probably be modded to serve as Chaos units just as well. He decided to go for Eldar. Both of us just bought a huge pile of stuff that looked cool without really knowing what they did (beyond a cursory glance at the codexes).

Since our initial purchases, both of us also acquired secondhand armies from friends who were looking to sell/give away their stuff. I inherited a rather large pile of Thousand Sons as well as a terminator squad and a handful of vehicles (including a Chaos Land Raider) and he acquired some 2000+ points worth of Tau with Broadside suits, Hammerheads, and half a dozen various vehicles. So far, we've been noticing that the Lascannons which Chaos has abundant access to are incredibly devastating and his combined Eldar/Tau force doesn't really have an adequate answer to. His Broadside suits have 72" range railguns, but I took care of those quickly with deep striking Termicide. He's been building the Wave Serpents and the Fire Prism that he bought with the hopes of improving his chances and maybe that'll be enough.

Amusingly enough, I'm actually posting this in the hopes of getting some advice for my friend's force more than my own. I want our armies to be roughly balanced, but our last battle was pretty much a one-sided beatdown. Our 1500 pt armies consisted of the following (as best as I can remember):

CSM:
1 Chaos Land Raider
7 Thousand Sons + Aspiring Sorcerer in Rhino w/Havoc Launcher
7 Thousand Sons + Aspiring Sorcerer in Rhino w/Havoc Launcher
Ahriman (HQ)
1 Chaos Predator w/TL Lascannon and twin Lascannon Sponsons
2 Obliterators
2 Chaos Terminators w/Combi-Meltas & Power Fists + Chaos Terminator Champion w/same (Deep Strike Reserve)

Eldar/Tau:
3 Broadside Battlesuits w/railguns and missile pods + 2 Shield Drones
1 Shas'O Commander w/2 Crisis Bodyguards, all outfitted with Fusion Guns (HQ)
20 Fire Warriors (2 squads)
Illek Nightspear (HQ)
10 Eldar Rangers (2 squads)
2 Wraithlords w/dual Brightlances
3 War Walkers w/dual Brightlances

I don't specifically know many of the upgrades his army was fielding, but he said that he felt totally powerless against the Land Raider because all of my lascannons outranged his Brightlances and the Terminators posed a considerable threat to his Broadsides and distracted them from putting railguns down range while I closed the gap with the Rhinos. I suspect that the addition of some vehicles to his forces will swing things back his way, but will a couple of Wave Serpents and a Fire Prism be enough? His Rangers were almost totally useless as my infantry didn't leave the Rhinos until they were practically on top of his front line and they had no hope of damaging the transports.

We're both still very new to the game and haven't really played around with the different game styles. Right now we're just playing "elimination-style" in which the sole objective is to destroy the opposing army. Perhaps different game modes would benefit his army composition since this mode allows me to hide in the metal bawkses until I absolutely have to get out and spray bolter fire into Tau faces. I would love to hear any feedback about how to improve the game for either of us. For my part, it was pretty much "hose things with lascannons until all the anti-vehicle stuff is dead, then rush with Rhinos and spray Inferno bolts and psyker powers from 12" away." For him, all he could do was take potshots with the 3 Broadsides and hope to score some damage. In the end, he managed to score a single glancing hit on the Land Raider, destroyed one Rhino, and immobilized the other one (after it had unloaded in his face). The Obliterators and Predator were unscathed.

He shouldn't fixate on your landraider. If he pops your rhinos with his railguns then he will have something to shoot his anti personel weapons at.

He should look at his weapons effectiveness, if it says lance or melta (and is in melta range) then it can pop a landraider otherwise just blow up other stuff with it (e.g. Rhinos).

An aegis defence line will help him against your low AP weapons by giving cover save to some stuff. Wait till 7th edition comes out and there are dynamic objectives to complete that should spice up your games.

Fatespinner wrote:



Eldar/Tau:
3 Broadside Battlesuits w/railguns and missile pods + 2 Shield Drones
1 Shas'O Commander w/2 Crisis Bodyguards, all outfitted with Fusion Guns (HQ)
20 Fire Warriors (2 squads)
Illek Nightspear (HQ)
10 Eldar Rangers (2 squads)
2 Wraithlords w/dual Brightlances
3 War Walkers w/dual Brightlances

Thats a very anti-vehicle heavy weapons selection. the broadsides, lords, and walkers are all kitted out for av. one of the big advantages the eldar have is the ability to fire a lot of medium strength shots. for cheap. swapping those brightlances for scatter lasers, or against meq units, starcannons, can make a huge difference. being able to kill 2 models a turn with lances compared to 4 to 8 with other options can very quickly sway a battle. Theyd still be strong enough to deal with the rhinos as well. id try that first before just buying more models. because its not too bad a list. he has infiltrators, a scout unit, models to hold a backfield. really only missing something to move forward to take/contest with.

 Stearic wrote:

Thats a very anti-vehicle heavy weapons selection. the broadsides, lords, and walkers are all kitted out for av. one of the big advantages the eldar have is the ability to fire a lot of medium strength shots. for cheap. swapping those brightlances for scatter lasers, or against meq units, starcannons, can make a huge difference. being able to kill 2 models a turn with lances compared to 4 to 8 with other options can very quickly sway a battle. Theyd still be strong enough to deal with the rhinos as well. id try that first before just buying more models. because its not too bad a list. he has infiltrators, a scout unit, models to hold a backfield. really only missing something to move forward to take/contest with.

Thank you both for the input so far.

So the issue is that he needed to move up all of his brightlances to get within range after the initial deployment. I had deployed my lascannons further back in my deployment zone with the knowledge that I had a good 12" of range on him. He managed to rush his war walkers up (he won initiative) and fire off a salvo of shots at the LR, but only one of them managed to deal any damage (a single glancing hit). The Wraithlords couldn't even get in range on their turn. Then, on my turn, the LR fired both TL Lascannons, the Predator fired it's TL Lascannon and both lascannon sponsons, and the Obliterators fired their two lascannons and completely annihilated the War Walker squad. I cut his AT capacity pretty much in half with a single volley and I didn't even have to move.

I suppose it's also possible that we're doing deployment/initiative wrong, but we used the 'Hammer & Anvil' deployment method and, as such, ended up with a sizeable amount of backfield space to deploy it. I chose to leverage my superior range by starting out further back.

War walkers can and probably should outflank.

wtnind wrote:
War walkers can and probably should outflank.

Where does it say they have Outflank? I only see Scout and Fleet. I agree that outflank would've made them vastly more potent in our fight, but I don't see that option on them.

EDIT: Nevermind, it appears that we missed the fact that Scout units automatically gain the ability to Outflank. Huh. That's cool, then.

Also, just to give your friend a chance maybe consider playing a few games without the Landraider. An armor 14 box with 48" range on the field is kind of a scary thing for new players. Let him get a feel for his army before you throw your best unit at him. Just a thought

We both started playing at the same time, even bought our starting armies together. This was our second game ever, so we really had no indication of the true power of AV14 until we saw it in action.

Of course, he bought 3 Wave Serpents and finally got around to building them so I guess I'm going to find out very soon why everyone thinks they're so powerful...

Having the scout rule gives you the ability to outflank.

Let him proxy a riptide! That sucker loves lascannons and does a great job killing tanks usually, too.

The broadsides can be given early-warning override upgrades, which will let them get a shot at deep striking troops after they arrive. I think his other suits can take them, too. There's also "bubble wrapping", where he spreads out troops around his broadsides so that your terminators can't land within 12" to use their meltaguns.

Shadowsun has the stealth and shrouded special rules. If she is used and joins the broadsides behind cover, they will have a 2+ cover save against your shots.

It's so strange to be to hear an eldar player having trouble against a chaos player, as usually it is vastly, vastly the other way around in most tournament settings. Which leads me to ask - how much cover is on your board? A bunch of fire warriors and rangers in the open are bound to just get torn up by bolter fire and heavy bolters, while their shots bounce off marine armor.

Definitely pass on the advice that trying to use S8 railguns to glance a landraider to death is a fool's errand. Kill everything else like the predator or the rhinos and thousand sons and worry about the landraider later.

 Spellbound wrote:

Shadowsun has the stealth and shrouded special rules. If she is used and joins the broadsides behind cover, they will have a 2+ cover save against your shots.

It's so strange to be to hear an eldar player having trouble against a chaos player, as usually it is vastly, vastly the other way around in most tournament settings. Which leads me to ask - how much cover is on your board? A bunch of fire warriors and rangers in the open are bound to just get torn up by bolter fire and heavy bolters, while their shots bounce off marine armor.

Yeah, we haven't really gotten around to doing things with cover and terrain yet. We just kind of arbitrarily place plastic bags or books or boxes on the table and state that they're buildings or difficult terrain or whatever. This particular game, there was no cover to speak of.

Whilst most would agree that eldar are currently above CSM in the army rankings as it were, eldar have a much steeper learning curve. The models are CSM are naturally tough, even more-so the models you have taken. HE is playing a non-optimised eldar list which will take a while to get used to. His troops especially are where he is weakest. When there are jetbikes, DA and guardians to be had, pathfinders are a poor choice. Useable, but definitely weaker, and definitely not as his only troops.

Much of the percieved strength of eldar also lies in their wave serpents and farseers. He is running neither, so that will obviously limit him.

AV 14 is trouble for most armies, but often the best plan is to ignore it, and let the folks get out. Force them to charge a sacrificial/unimportant unit, then blast him to hell with the rest of your army at close range.

im sure if he targets your transports turn one he should be able to pop open those rhinos. Give it some time i'm sure you'll be back asking how csm stand a chance vs elder.