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 Swastakowey wrote:
Just seems like this dude is playing an army he likes.

I can sympathize. My list would be awful in any competitive environment. I still go down fighting every time, but its a list I enjoy. Its just unfortunate than most eldar lists are leagues ahead. Heck, even if the eldar guy went easy it would still be an uphill battle.

Just dont play eldar mate. And if you do, make sure you talk before hand. If thats a list you like, then keep playing it. Just be careful who you play with. If you really want to keep playing the eldar forces, simply try learn fast how to reduce the speed in which they kill you. Last game I had around 50% losses by turn 7 against an eldar list. Still lost, but its better than 99% losses I had last time by the end of the game.

Dont turn it into an arms race via list building. Its easy for someone (baxicanX) who plays only online and can change the list however and whenever, but using models is a vastly different story.

That's a fair jab- but the point remains, it's silly to cry "waaah Eldar" when your loss really has nothing to do with your opponent.

The situation as presented in this thread could be exactly reversed.

How do you think it feels to play a horde assault list like 'nids or orks and to go up against an IG gunline backed up by 12 wyverns? It's not fun. How do you think it feels to play a Guardian-heavy / Banshee-heavy Eldar list and go up against an AV14 wall or a Vandetta-spam list with little or no AV or AA? It sucks. You might as well just pack up your models and go home.

"Play the list you want" and "play with what you have" is all well and good. But don't complain when someone brings a list that's simply better than yours and uses tactics that are better than yours and proceeds to trounce you. Replace that Eldar list with my Khorne-Raptor list and the end result would have been the same. Is CSM suddenly an EZ-mode-auto-win-no-skill army that you're better off just not playing against?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Just seems like this dude is playing an army he likes.

I can sympathize. My list would be awful in any competitive environment. I still go down fighting every time, but its a list I enjoy. Its just unfortunate than most eldar lists are leagues ahead. Heck, even if the eldar guy went easy it would still be an uphill battle.

Just dont play eldar mate. And if you do, make sure you talk before hand. If thats a list you like, then keep playing it. Just be careful who you play with. If you really want to keep playing the eldar forces, simply try learn fast how to reduce the speed in which they kill you. Last game I had around 50% losses by turn 7 against an eldar list. Still lost, but its better than 99% losses I had last time by the end of the game.

Dont turn it into an arms race via list building. Its easy for someone (baxicanX) who plays only online and can change the list however and whenever, but using models is a vastly different story.

That's a fair jab- but the point remains, it's silly to cry "waaah Eldar" when your loss really has nothing to do with your opponent.

The situation as presented in this thread could be exactly reserved.

How do you think it feels to play a horde assault list like 'nids or orks and to go up against an IG gunline backed up by 12 wyverns? It's not fun. How do you think it feels to play against an AV14 wall or a Vandetta-spam list with little or no AV or AA? It sucks. You might as well just pack up your models and go home.

"Play the list you want" and "play with what you have" is all well and good. But don't complain when someone brings a list that's simply better than yours and uses tactics that are better than yours and proceeds to trounce you. Replace that Eldar list with my Khorne-Raptor list and the end result would have been the same. Is CSM suddenly an EZ-mode-auto-win-no-skill army that you're better off just not playing against?

I have to agree with you there. If he really wants to win, he should build a better list.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Just seems like this dude is playing an army he likes.

I can sympathize. My list would be awful in any competitive environment. I still go down fighting every time, but its a list I enjoy. Its just unfortunate than most eldar lists are leagues ahead. Heck, even if the eldar guy went easy it would still be an uphill battle.

Just dont play eldar mate. And if you do, make sure you talk before hand. If thats a list you like, then keep playing it. Just be careful who you play with. If you really want to keep playing the eldar forces, simply try learn fast how to reduce the speed in which they kill you. Last game I had around 50% losses by turn 7 against an eldar list. Still lost, but its better than 99% losses I had last time by the end of the game.

Dont turn it into an arms race via list building. Its easy for someone (baxicanX) who plays only online and can change the list however and whenever, but using models is a vastly different story.

That's a fair jab- but the point remains, it's silly to cry "waaah Eldar" when your loss really has nothing to do with your opponent.

The situation as presented in this thread could be exactly reserved.

How do you think it feels to play a horde assault list like 'nids or orks and to go up against a Pask-Star backed up by 12 wyverns? It's not fun. How do you think it feels to play against an AV14 wall or a Vandetta-spam list with little or no AV or AA? It sucks.

"Play the list you want" and "play with what you have" is all well and good. But don't complain when someone brings a list that's simply better than yours and uses tactics that are better than yours and trounces you.

Well the tactics bit is all assumption. So unless we see a battle report its better off just leaving it to the list which is all we have to go on.

All lists can have bad match ups along with all codices. But its very well known that eldar are by far the most efficient and deadly codex out there. Some argue Tau or demons but overall I think many would say Eldar. They are not invincible true, but they are almost never easy.

I for one, no matter my list, always feel at a disadvantage when facing any Eldar list. I know exactly what he is going through. If he was facing space marines or tyranids, I am very certain his game would have gone a lot better. And by a lot better I dont mean he wins. By better I mean he may have felt like his loss was more his tactics and not just his opponents army.

There is nothing worse than having an army you love and put the time and effort into being faced off by an army thats naturally better than yours because of its codex. Eldar are the worst offender at this. I too feel Eldar have a natural advantage, and while I wont complain or not play them, deep inside I resent some of the games I play with eldar. Just feels like wasted time.

Its not the loss or win. Its how cheated many feel after facing Eldar.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well the tactics bit is all assumption. So unless we see a battle report its better off just leaving it to the list which is all we have to go on.

Only to an extent. When we know exactly what list the players had, which we do, and we have a statement from the IG player saying "the Eldar player killed all my Leman Russes and my CCS-Chimera turn 2" it doesn't exactly take a psychic to figure out how that mistakes were made.

All lists can have bad match ups along with all codices. But its very well known that eldar are by far the most efficient and deadly codex out there.

But only at a high-play level. Do you think an Eldar list consisting of Guardian squads and Howling Banshees is "the most efficient and deadly" list out there? No. Yeah, a full-on Seer-Council GJB spam with fortune and invisibility out the ass and Wave Serpents everywhere is one of the toughest armies out there, but that's not what we saw here is it? We're seeing a slightly competitive Eldar list versus a below-average Guard list, with all evidence presented thus far pointing to the Guard list being played sub-optimally.

There is nothing worse than having an army you love and put the time and effort into being faced off by an army thats naturally better than yours because of its codex.

Cool, but that's not what happened here. What happened is that a decent player with a decent list went up against a poor player with a poor list. Eldar have nothing to do with what occurred in this scenario.

And for the record, the Imperial Guard are one of the scariest match-ups to an Eldar player, second only to Tau. An army that relies almost exclusively on cover saves and speed versus an army that has army-wide ignores cover and LOS-ignoring AP3 out the ass? Yeah, Guard players should never be rubbing their butts and wincing after a match with Eldar, even if they lose.

Whenever I play against someone who puts nearly all his points into two units, it's usually a bad game. Any codex can do this. Eldar get the most crap for being OP right now (they are), but this problem doesn't seem to be Eldar specific.

Imagine if you were a Green Tide army, and I dropped two 10-man Tac Termites on the board. You'll get much the same result as you did against the Spears. Spam is spam, and bad matchups suck, but that's not just an Eldar problem.

I also question how things unfolded. Spears cannot touch anything first turn that's inside your deployment. They can't shoot after moving more than 12".

Also, getting 2xFortune was really good luck, but he's likely to fail some of them. And he *might* get another power off some rounds, but that should be extremely rare.

Honestly, 2x10man raptors with Sorcs for Invis would probably be a lot stronger (Sorcs beat the snot out ofFarseers for manifesting, especially WC2 powers). And that's a 'bad' dex.

Eldar probably have the most WAAC players right now, because some of their options, but its the problem is the player, not the Dex.

Oh, and BS on having played the Hemlock since 6th came around. Didn't exist until over halfway through (when the Dex came out)

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well the tactics bit is all assumption. So unless we see a battle report its better off just leaving it to the list which is all we have to go on.

Only to an extent. When we know exactly what list the players had, which we do, and we have a statement from the IG player saying "the Eldar player killed all my Leman Russes and my CCS-Chimera turn 2" it doesn't exactly take a psychic to figure out how that mistakes were made.

All lists can have bad match ups along with all codices. But its very well known that eldar are by far the most efficient and deadly codex out there.

But only at a high-play level. Do you think an Eldar list consisting of Guardian squads and Howling Banshees is "the most efficient and deadly" list out there? No. Yeah, a full-on Seer-Council GJB spam with fortune and invisibility out the ass and Wave Serpents everywhere is one of the toughest armies out there, but that's not what we saw here is it? We're seeing a slightly competitive Eldar list versus a below-average Guard list, with all evidence presented thus far pointing to it being played sub-optimally here.

There is nothing worse than having an army you love and put the time and effort into being faced off by an army thats naturally better than yours because of its codex.

Cool, but that's not what happened here. What happened is that a decent player with a decent list went up against a poor player with a poor list. Eldar have nothing to do with what occurred in this scenario.

Well for a start Guardians are pretty decent. Unless you have ignores cover the chances of them zooming around with their buffed weapon platforms (which are the same price as guard heavies but buffed) then they can be hard to kill. Those heavy weapons do wonders to a mobile squad that can run shoot run. With fleet. I would love to trade my heavy weapons for theirs! Their units are almost always better than any other units equivalent. Mobility, survivability and deadly weapons are an amazing combination. Banshees arent that bad either. A bit wasteful against guard however. Not the best, but not horrifically bad. Just less than meh.

Anyways, think what you will, but I personally think against another faction he wouldnt have felt so hopeless in that fight. Which is all im saying. Eldar are real hope and joy killers. Unless you can make a list to kill theirs in advance. Which isnt always possible.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well the tactics bit is all assumption. So unless we see a battle report its better off just leaving it to the list which is all we have to go on.

Only to an extent. When we know exactly what list the players had, which we do, and we have a statement from the IG player saying "the Eldar player killed all my Leman Russes and my CCS-Chimera turn 2" it doesn't exactly take a psychic to figure out how that mistakes were made.

All lists can have bad match ups along with all codices. But its very well known that eldar are by far the most efficient and deadly codex out there.

But only at a high-play level. Do you think an Eldar list consisting of Guardian squads and Howling Banshees is "the most efficient and deadly" list out there? No. Yeah, a full-on Seer-Council GJB spam with fortune and invisibility out the ass and Wave Serpents everywhere is one of the toughest armies out there, but that's not what we saw here is it? We're seeing a slightly competitive Eldar list versus a below-average Guard list, with all evidence presented thus far pointing to the Guard list being played sub-optimally.

There is nothing worse than having an army you love and put the time and effort into being faced off by an army thats naturally better than yours because of its codex.

Cool, but that's not what happened here. What happened is that a decent player with a decent list went up against a poor player with a poor list. Eldar have nothing to do with what occurred in this scenario.

And for the record, the Imperial Guard are one of the scariest match-ups to an Eldar player, second only to Tau. An army that relies almost exclusively on cover saves and speed versus an army that has army-wide ignores cover and LOS-ignoring AP2-3 out the ass? Yeah, Guard players should never be rubbing their butts and wincing after a match with Eldar, even if they lose.

If only all guard players had all the models for all these options all painted up, assembled and ready for every game if eldar happened to show up.

Whilst I am usually one of the first in a conversation to state how OP the eldar are - 'the anti-fun' is a bit harsh!
As long as its not a serp spam (or more than two - at a push 3), playing against eldar is ultimatly more fun than playing against a static IG or Tau gunline, or waiting hours for a horde nid or ork player to complete their movement.
Yes they are by far the most difficult to beat, even without serpents, and if they have taken mass, cheap st6/7 high rof guns on durable platforms its not fun just removing models. But there are a huge amount of eldar builds that are really fun to play against!
The words 'eldar' and 'are' in your title should be switched and a poll put in tbh.

What it all boils down to is does AM have a chance to beat eldar if both lists are optimized and all things fair.

Swastakowey wrote:Anyways, think what you will, but I personally think against another faction he wouldnt have felt so hopeless in that fight. Which is all im saying.

What? You think he would have had a more enjoyable experience against a triptide or missilespam tau list? A guard leafblower? A demon factory?

There are tons of possible things that would have been worse than this from several other codices.

Swastakowey wrote:Just seems like this dude is playing an army he likes.

This is likely true... but.

40k is a game that gives you near infinite choice, but it also has certain basic rules and certain things you sort of have to do. This means that there is a vast, vast, swaths of ways to make lists bad. Of course, there are still tons of ways to make lists that are good and can be fun to play even if you follow the basic principles of the way the game is supposed to be played. "Play what you want, whatever" is likely to end poorly, just like in any game, really. What the OP needs in this case is "play what you want, respecting the fundamentals of the game".

I mean, if what the player wants is to not bring anti-tank weapons, then he needs to understand that 40k is a game with tanks, and "play what he wants" in this case will get him crushed by every single mech list in the game.

If he changes his list to play what he wants with a few reasonable restrictions, then there shouldn't be any problems. Saying "I should be able to field whatever models I want and still not get stomped" is fundamentally against the spirit of 40k.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

[giant pile of stuff I agree with]

An army that relies almost exclusively on cover saves and speed versus an army that has army-wide ignores cover and LOS-ignoring AP3 out the ass? Yeah, Guard players should never be rubbing their butts and wincing after a match with Eldar, even if they lose.

I would take a tiny bit of umbrage with this, though. Guard isn't exactly a hard counter to eldar (especially not compared to, say, tau). They do have monstrous creatures, which guard struggle against, and any foot guard list is likely going to have problems with the vast quantity of anti-infantry firepower that eldar can put out. I definitely had my power blobs blown off the table a few times by eldar.

Guard can make lists that can beat good eldar lists, but we're not exactly talking about GK vs. demons or Tau vs. orks level of hard counter, here.

Everything else, though, I'm 100% with.

You missed the point alarios. That eldar list wasnt even a 'internet name here" style list. Chances are those sorts of lists arent common where this guy plays and chances are he would have faced a normal list from another opponent instead. I dont know if im explaining it very well though.

As for the list. He had some anti tank (how many tanks did the enemy have?) he had some infantry weapons, he had a mix. It just wasnt the best of the best so his chances of harming a codex of better units was a lot smaller.

Anyways. Thats all I say. I feel you OP. Just dont let them see it in your face. Loose like a man and take it. in time. You will learn how to overcome them. If not, hopefully by then the next edition has come and their codex goes back a bit.

Id just like to stick up for guard in the cover ignoring aspect. Ignores cover on eldar vehicles in particular.
Lets admit straight away that no sane guards player is going to take HWS against eldar.
Now thats out of the way:
The way to get the most efficient use out of ignores cover order against eldar mech is 5 lascannons in a blob. To get 5 lascannons in a blob and for the order you need: 5 lascannons, 5 infantry squads, platoon command squad, company command squad. So without ANY upgrades barring the lascannons you are talking 440pts. 440pts for 5 bs3 cover ignoring lascannons is not good economy.
This whole outrage at guards ignores cover order is totally OTT.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Yes, clearly it was my inexperience (having only played since 3rd edition) and my ally's (having played since 5th edition). In the previous game I allied with the guy hosting (who has played since 2nd edition). So clearly it was just our stupidity and inexperience.

Alone, I had over 50 infantrymen on the board with 1,000 points. Pask and his buddies would have been dead on turn 2, just like my tank commander.

You say you've been playing since 3rd edition, yet your list is garbage, being filled with useless items like grenade launchers, and you apparently have no idea what "bubble-wrap" is. Shining Spears can only kill a Leman Russ in assault. How exactly are they going to assault a Leman Russ when it's literally surrounded in a U-shape formation by guardsmen? There is no physical space for Shining Spears to get into assault with it. So they have to punch through the Guardsmen first, and if they're relying on hit and run to not get stuck in then that gives you free reign to shoot them off the board, which you should be able to easily do with the IG's readily available access to AP3 and AP2.

That Eldar are extremely powerful is a given, and I don't think anyone would disagree. However the problem presented in this thread by you is not a balance problem, it's a learn2play problem.

Well thank you for more of your mean-spirited posts. They're truly helpful. Clearly my decision to field grenade launchers in a TAC list was my doom and downfall. A horrendous mistake on par with Chamberlain's appeasement or Pickett's Charge. I'm very sorry for trying to maximize hits through cheap mortars and frag grenades, stupid me for trying to experiment.

Your previous suggestion for FRF against the shining spears is precisely why the bubble wrap on the tanks opened up. My vanquisher had to move to target the Tau vehicles, the eradicator had to follow, and my twenty conscripts had to move within 12" of the shining spears to rapid fire. You see, as someone who plays in the real world, the battlefield conditions actually change and aren't perfectly optimized to fit your tidy tactical narrative. Trying to seize the opportunity my guard moved forward, hoping to strike hard before they could do their damage. We poured lasgun fire into those units on turn 1. Between my ally and I we had about 70 lasgunners, many with FRF. As I pointed out before, even with rapid fire and FRF we would only manage to kill 4 on average. We didn't have rapid fire and frf on everyone, and only managed to kill 2.

All your theory-crafting is very entertaining and I'm sure it works terribly well in your head and the imaginary battles that you planned. Deciding to go with plasma or melta vets puts serious points constraints on the list, and I would have needed to choose between a mass of infantry or a mech list. Mech vets wouldn't have been able to benefit from any ignores cover orders anyway. A fifty man blob squad would have been a disaster, it's bad enough that the bikes can disengage whenever they like, locking in combat through our shooting phases, but a single assault would completely disrupt a 50 man bubble wrap blob. That entire unit would not be able to shoot, and would need to make pile in moves, taking them out of position. My lascannons would be utterly useless in close combat, and the sheer mass of models means that he can cluster one part of the unit, escaping hits from the majority of them. The squad can either be condense or spread out for bubble wrap, it can't do both, and it's against the rules to have all 50 of them magically make it into combat 12" away on the other side of the unit. Read the rules.

How could I possible take advantage of hit and run? They make the choice whether or not to disengage, if I charge them, then they disengage in time to move/shoot/and assault in their own turn, if they charge me, they hang around in combat with their 3++ armor save through my shooting phase and then disengage. It does not "give you free reign" to shoot them off the table. That's not how it works. If you're going to belittle and harass somebody on the forum at least have the decency to know what the hell you're talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
If it gets the point across.

People like you are exactly the problem in this hobby. Taking a game and turning it into "I'm right, you're wrong." It's the attitude that is putting off so many people.

This thread is a good demonstration how codex imbalances make the game less fun for some players and very frustrating at times, especially for new players.

 TheSilo wrote:


People like you are exactly the problem in this hobby. Taking a game and turning it into "I'm right, you're wrong." It's the attitude that is putting off so many people.

But people refusing to play games based on faction choice, most of the time is due to pre-existing collections or aesthetics, is completely fine and not a problem for the hobby?
As a Tau player, I honestly feel that this kind of attitude has ruined the game for me and made my entire collection sit collecting cobwebs. I started in 5th and played for years with a very under performing army just to get updated to the point where pulling my models out of my bag cause agonized groans.

But honestly, what did you want from this thread.
I figure it was either:
A.) Faction 'X' beat me, what could I do to beat faction 'X' or where did I go wrong.
or
B.) Faction 'X' is bad and all players that play them should feel bad.

You've had a lot of people offer advice, and honestly I can't say anything since I don't have much of an Eldar army and no experience as AM. I just can't really agree with the attitude of "I can never play X faction again" especially when people are offering advice on how to handle it.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:


People like you are exactly the problem in this hobby. Taking a game and turning it into "I'm right, you're wrong." It's the attitude that is putting off so many people.

But people refusing to play games based on faction choice, most of the time is due to pre-existing collections or aesthetics, is completely fine and not a problem for the hobby?
As a Tau player, I honestly feel that this kind of attitude has ruined the game for me and made my entire collection sit collecting cobwebs. I started in 5th and played for years with a very under performing army just to get updated to the point where pulling my models out of my bag cause agonized groans.

But honestly, what did you want from this thread.
I figure it was either:
A.) Faction 'X' beat me, what could I do to beat faction 'X' or where did I go wrong.
or
B.) Faction 'X' is bad and all players that play them should feel bad.

You've had a lot of people offer advice, and honestly I can't say anything since I don't have much of an Eldar army and no experience as AM. I just can't really agree with the attitude of "I can never play X faction again" especially when people are offering advice on how to handle it.

That is all well and good, but the advice was offered in the most mean spirited condescending way. You ever think that maybe he created this thread to see if other people had similar experiences?

He didn't take an optimized list, I am fairly certain that he knows it, we know it, everyone knows it. There is no reason to bash him over the head with it.

The issue is that such wild imbalance exist in the game and frankly, for Eldar, it is really hard to NOT make a list like that. I mean, you could make the worst possible list to make a point but in terms of even relatively thought out list you aren't going to see much weakness. The IG list presented here wasn't terrible, it wasn't optimized, it was a fairly middling list that was pretty fluffy. The Eldar list wasn't even close to optimized but it is still going to shred most any middling list other armies can produce. There is also this wild assumption that our IG player knew exactly what he was facing off against when he was building his list. Just knowing that you are playing against Eldar can mean a LOT of variations because they can run Mech, MSU, Horde, etc.

 TheSilo wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
Yes, clearly it was my inexperience (having only played since 3rd edition) and my ally's (having played since 5th edition). In the previous game I allied with the guy hosting (who has played since 2nd edition). So clearly it was just our stupidity and inexperience.

Alone, I had over 50 infantrymen on the board with 1,000 points. Pask and his buddies would have been dead on turn 2, just like my tank commander.

You say you've been playing since 3rd edition, yet your list is garbage, being filled with useless items like grenade launchers, and you apparently have no idea what "bubble-wrap" is. Shining Spears can only kill a Leman Russ in assault. How exactly are they going to assault a Leman Russ when it's literally surrounded in a U-shape formation by guardsmen? There is no physical space for Shining Spears to get into assault with it. So they have to punch through the Guardsmen first, and if they're relying on hit and run to not get stuck in then that gives you free reign to shoot them off the board, which you should be able to easily do with the IG's readily available access to AP3 and AP2.

That Eldar are extremely powerful is a given, and I don't think anyone would disagree. However the problem presented in this thread by you is not a balance problem, it's a learn2play problem.

Well thank you for more of your mean-spirited posts. They're truly helpful. Clearly my decision to field grenade launchers in a TAC list was my doom and downfall. A horrendous mistake on par with Chamberlain's appeasement or Pickett's Charge. I'm very sorry for trying to maximize hits through cheap mortars and frag grenades, stupid me for trying to experiment.

He's absolutely telling the truth, even it comes across as harsh. I frankly agree with all he has said.

I'm counting 64 points worth of these mediocre upgrades. For the record, that's 4 Plasma Guns that actually do hard killing, or 6 Meltaguns that are versatile extra firepower that are great as an all round choice. I'd say that 64 points could make the difference between victory and defeat.

Mortars and GLs are tack on upgrades that give you basically nothing effective, no extra roles, just mediocrity and the thought of "why not just bring more Guardsmen".

Your previous suggestion for FRF against the shining spears is precisely why the bubble wrap on the tanks opened up. My vanquisher had to move to target the Tau vehicles, the eradicator had to follow, and my twenty conscripts had to move within 12" of the shining spears to rapid fire.

Except you're wrong. You never probably "had" to. The option to do nothing and hide or sustain a potential defence is almost always there, and you compromised your army by trying to exploit targets which resulted in structural weaknesses opening up. Or by making the wrong decision. If it didn't work or pay off, there's three conclusions you can make. 1) Your list isn't geared properly. 2) You made the wrong decision. 3) Your luck was terrible. You've definitely suffered from 1), and probably 2) to at least some degree.

I played a game today against Dark Eldar. 3 Russes, 2 Vendettas, 3 Chimera Vet squads and an Inquisitor+ mini retinue against a Skimmer barge spam list. I lost 3 of the Russes by the beginning of his turn 2, as well as the Inquisitor + Retinue. They moved in fast and haywired/blastered/lanced them to death, mostly by the first as the latter two methods of killing were accomplished on good luck. I reserved all the Chimeras before the game to explicitly avoid feeding. Arguably if I'd bubblewrapped the Pask Russes and hadn't underestimated the Trueborn Haywirers, even if I had to make do with Vets, I would have stood a way better chance of winning.

Next turn 2 Chimeras came on, and a Vendetta. I had a split decision, and one Chimera squad went for the Kabalite Trueborn that had haywired Pasks Squadron to death. They wiped them out, but in turn got massacred by the Archon, his Incubi and dark lances that popped the Chimera. A tactical error in hindsight.

The remaining Chimera instead dashed up the board out of the way as the Vendettas de-meched the Dark Eldar systematically. He had my objective in TEW, but I could still grab his and force the draw. I didn't have to feed men hopelessly to try score kills like I did with the other Chimera. That isn't 40k. What I did was come extremely close to clearing his objective and almost forcing a draw, only failing because a vehicle explosion from a Raider killed about 3 times the statistical likelihood worth of men and ruined my chances of pushing the Kabs off the objective.

You see, as someone who plays in the real world, the battlefield conditions actually change and aren't perfectly optimized to fit your tidy tactical narrative. Trying to seize the opportunity my guard moved forward, hoping to strike hard before they could do their damage.

Except 1) made this strategy inadvisable and essentially impossible to properly pull off. Arguably, if you'd sustained a more defensive formation, you could have gone for stage-by-stage whittling with slight decreases in firepower at first, hence, 2).

We poured lasgun fire into those units on turn 1.

What if you'd held them back, fired the big guns, and got a turn of non-double tap followed by double tap anyway?

Between my ally and I we had about 70 lasgunners, many with FRF. As I pointed out before, even with rapid fire and FRF we would only manage to kill 4 on average. We didn't have rapid fire and frf on everyone, and only managed to kill 2.

But terrible heavy fire support, and 20 of those Lasgunners were Conscripts, which are laughable factored into that number. Plus, your FRF can't have been properly concentrated as your blobs are too small.

Deciding to go with plasma or melta vets puts serious points constraints on the list,

But at least you can actually effectively kill select targets. You can scatter garbage across a wide field but it'll never be more efficient than digging a bloody great hole and filling it with compressed waste.

and I would have needed to choose between a mass of infantry or a mech list.

Instead you went for an ineffective weird mix of both. Don't tell me it isn't possible because I played semi-competitively for years with a mix.

Mech vets wouldn't have been able to benefit from any ignores cover orders anyway.

Between the Command Vehicle special rule and application of brain cells, it is quite possible.

A fifty man blob squad would have been a disaster, it's bad enough that the bikes can disengage whenever they like, locking in combat through our shooting phases, but a single assault would completely disrupt a 50 man bubble wrap blob. That entire unit would not be able to shoot, and would need to make pile in moves, taking them out of position. My lascannons would be utterly useless in close combat, and the sheer mass of models means that he can cluster one part of the unit, escaping hits from the majority of them. The squad can either be condense or spread out for bubble wrap, it can't do both, and it's against the rules to have all 50 of them magically make it into combat 12" away on the other side of the unit. Read the rules.

Then make it 30 man. Or, add a Priest, and tarpit him hilariously or force him to Hit and Run, followed by imminent death.


How could I possible take advantage of hit and run? They make the choice whether or not to disengage, if I charge them, then they disengage in time to move/shoot/and assault in their own turn, if they charge me, they hang around in combat with their 3++ armor save through my shooting phase and then disengage. It does not "give you free reign" to shoot them off the table. That's not how it works. If you're going to belittle and harass somebody on the forum at least have the decency to know what the hell you're talking about.

There's two probable states this unit is in, in this scenario. 1) Tarpitted, giving you breathing room to massacre everything else. 2) Having hit-and-ran, meaning you can shoot them to death.

In addition, during 1), you can have everything else fall back, shuffle back or regroup into a bubblewrap if need be. Falling back voluntarily is one of the most neglected strategies in 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
If it gets the point across.

People like you are exactly the problem in this hobby. Taking a game and turning it into "I'm right, you're wrong." It's the attitude that is putting off so many people.

We get that you're leaning towards the casual part of the spectrum. But quit the nauseating supreme-high-and-mighty-I-spit-at-thou act towards competitive players. Both are reasonable mindsets, people need to stop damning people on the other side of the spectrum on principle.

The game of 40k is so poorly written that "right" and "wrong" exist, not flavors of play. If you take specifically bad units, you are doing it "wrong" if your goal is to have some sort of competitive play; that you'd like to win at least sometimes.

Warhammer is very much a strong mixture of what you play and a how you play it. If you want a game where there is less right and wrong, but more how you play, I'd suggest most other skirmish games on the market. They've taken to that style.

Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines being tepid while Eldar and Tau being amazing is an example of the game breaking down.

Yeah, someone can point out weakness in army composition or in the way something is used, and that's not the same as slandering your honor.

If the OP wanted useful advice (which it now doesn't seem he does), then we gave it to him. Being forthright and honest is a good thing, not a sign of draconian harshness.

Anyways, he can either accept help and work to improve himself, or he can sit down and whine about game balance and how unfair everything is. I think that decision's already been made, though...

 Swastakowey wrote:
Just seems like this dude is playing an army he likes.

Yeah, unfortunately 40k isn't a game of "bring what you like" or "bring whatever you have painted" and expect to be competitive, and that's without even considering the imbalance between codices. Even within a given codex there is so much imbalance that the difference between an optimised list and an unoptimised list is quite large.

Things like 3x Grenade Launchers on Vets is not only wasting points, it's wasting the effectiveness of the unit. Vets are one of the few cheap Bs4 options we have, if you're not giving them weapons that exploit their Bs4, you're kind of wasting the entire unit.

You say you had 70 lasgunners, but 40 of those were Conscripts, without even doing the math, you can figure out that it's 120pts worth of models... do you expect 120pts worth of shooting from a tarpit unit to actually do a lot of damage? You need to mix in some AP2/3 with your units (most importantly on the Vets where their Bs4 is best exploited) to make sure you're getting the most of the points you're spending. That's not to say Conscripts are bad, they're a good bubble wrapping unit, but to say "I had 40 lasgunners why aren't I hurting anything!" is looking at it the wrong way.

But unfortunately, not all options are created equal, even a casual glance at the codex shows this.

You can discuss the level of list optimisation with your opponent before the game, but I find this really hard and annoying because while a lot of people might accept 40k does not have balanced options, many people don't and even of those who do, you'll not find a consensus on what are balanced options.

Especially since the value of different options is also dependent on the players, some options are only worth their points in the hands of a general who knows how to use them, some options are worth their points even in the hands of a newbie who only knows to march across the battlefield shooting, some options simply aren't worth their points at all regardless of who is using them. Because of that, you'll almost never reach a consensus on what is a balanced game of 40k...

.... it should be up to the rule writers who have years of personal experience and are receiving feedback from hundreds of gamer's experiences. Of course we know that's not the case, so we're left with this awkward situation where you CAN'T just bring whatever you like and/or have available to you and expect to play a balanced game.

This is largely why I'm loosing steam with 40k. Yeah, I like the models, I like the fluff, but damn it when I play a game I actually want to play a game and not just put down my models and go "pew pew", that got boring after a couple of years.

I saw 40k and steep learning curve and just....didn't know what to do with myself.
I haven't been this lost since tunneling was explained to me.

 jreilly89 wrote:


I understand, but I also feel if he hadn't have rolled horribly, the Tau would've been a bigger threat. Eldar at least sometimes get into close combat. Tau just sit back and wreckhouse from long range, as well as having shots that ignore cover. Idk, I haven't played games against Eldar yet, but if I had to pick, I'd say I hate Tau more.

That's just cause you haven't played vs eldar yet.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well for a start Guardians are pretty decent. Unless you have ignores cover the chances of them zooming around with their buffed weapon platforms (which are the same price as guard heavies but buffed) then they can be hard to kill. Those heavy weapons do wonders to a mobile squad that can run shoot run. With fleet. I would love to trade my heavy weapons for theirs! Their units are almost always better than any other units equivalent. Mobility, survivability and deadly weapons are an amazing combination. Banshees arent that bad either. A bit wasteful against guard however. Not the best, but not horrifically bad. Just less than meh.

Anyways, think what you will, but I personally think against another faction he wouldnt have felt so hopeless in that fight. Which is all im saying. Eldar are real hope and joy killers. Unless you can make a list to kill theirs in advance. Which isnt always possible.

Right, and I'm sure somewhere in the World there's an Eldar player ho-humming because he wishes he could have chimeras as a DT in his army instead of Wave Serpents.

That Eldar player is also out of his mind, as is any Guard player who would trade Guardsmen for Guardians. Guardians are "okay". Guardsmen, with the flexibility offered by orders and platoons are one of the best troops choices in the entire game.

If only all guard players had all the models for all these options all painted up, assembled and ready for every game if eldar happened to show up.

"I should be able to take any units I want and make any list I want and be able to have a 50/50 chance of winning against any opponent's list."

You're right, and I agree with you that that is how the game should be. 40K is not compatible with that mindset, though, - and that is not a problem that is exclusive to playing against Eldar. The guy who's model collection consists of nothing but a Warboss, 6 units of slugga boy squads and a single squad of tankbustas is up gak-creek when he comes up against Land Raider spam Blood Angels. That's not the Blood Angel codices' fault.

 TheSilo wrote:
Clearly my decision to field grenade launchers in a TAC list was my doom and downfall. A horrendous mistake on par with Chamberlain's appeasement or Pickett's Charge. I'm very sorry for trying to maximize hits through cheap mortars and frag grenades, stupid me for trying to experiment.

I'm not going to give you a play-by-play on list building because A) We have a tactics and list building section for a reason, and B) Omega and others have already done so. But, yes, grenade launchers suck.

Your previous suggestion for FRF against the shining spears is precisely why the bubble wrap on the tanks opened up. My vanquisher had to move to target the Tau vehicles, the eradicator had to follow, and my twenty conscripts had to move within 12" of the shining spears to rapid fire. You see, as someone who plays in the real world, the battlefield conditions actually change and aren't perfectly optimized to fit your tidy tactical narrative. Trying to seize the opportunity my guard moved forward, hoping to strike hard before they could do their damage. We poured lasgun fire into those units on turn 1. Between my ally and I we had about 70 lasgunners, many with FRF. As I pointed out before, even with rapid fire and FRF we would only manage to kill 4 on average. We didn't have rapid fire and frf on everyone, and only managed to kill 2.

All your theory-crafting is very entertaining and I'm sure it works terribly well in your head and the imaginary battles that you planned. Deciding to go with plasma or melta vets puts serious points constraints on the list, and I would have needed to choose between a mass of infantry or a mech list. Mech vets wouldn't have been able to benefit from any ignores cover orders anyway. A fifty man blob squad would have been a disaster, it's bad enough that the bikes can disengage whenever they like, locking in combat through our shooting phases, but a single assault would completely disrupt a 50 man bubble wrap blob. That entire unit would not be able to shoot, and would need to make pile in moves, taking them out of position. My lascannons would be utterly useless in close combat, and the sheer mass of models means that he can cluster one part of the unit, escaping hits from the majority of them. The squad can either be condense or spread out for bubble wrap, it can't do both, and it's against the rules to have all 50 of them magically make it into combat 12" away on the other side of the unit.

The topic of this thread as posited by you is that the Eldar codex is overpowered, and you lost a match against them recently because there was just no way for you to cope against the broken invincibility of the Eldar codex. I suggest that your lost because your list is bad and you made poor tactical choices. You're offended by this suggestion, and spend two paragraphs telling me that the Tau player forced you into a position where the Eldar player was able to exploit an opening and cripple you, and that your list was "experimental" and lacked focus, being neither a mech-list nor a blob-list.

What part of this is supposed to convince me that your loss is due to the Eldar player's list being a broken, cheesy invincible monster, rather your list being a poor match-up against his and you not making sound tactical decisions?

Also, let's go ahead and nip this in the bud right now:

People like you are exactly the problem in this hobby. Taking a game and turning it into "I'm right, you're wrong." It's the attitude that is putting off so many people...

Well thank you for more of your mean-spirited posts. They're truly helpful...

If you're going to belittle and harass somebody on the forum...

Look, I'm sorry if the tone of my post has upset you. It's not my intention to upset you, in fact I really don't care about your emotional state one way or another.

That out of the way, insofar as "the problem with this hobby", I'd assert that people like you are more of a problem with this hobby than people like me. How many threads have I made in which the sole purpose of the thread is to complain about how much you hate a faction and the people who play it? You talk about my "mean spirited" words, but is it the Eldar players' fault that their codex is good and others are not? No- in fact they had a crap codex for years. Many of them picked their army because they liked the aesthetic or the fluff, just like you, so how do you think they feel when they read a thread filled with people bashing their army and making whack statements like "I don't play Eldar players!" and "Eldar players don't get games!"? I've been wanting to play Tau forever- I think their fluff is great and I love the way their units look and play- but I don't play them because I don't want to hear the groans and the passive-aggressive comments from other players everytime I crap on them with a Tau army. Do you think that's "healthy" for the hobby?

Swastakowey seems to be a genuinely nice fellow, but he doesn't understand that his coddling attitude is hurting you as a player, not helping you. Yes, Eldar are an extremely good army, possibly even the best in the game. But you know what? The truth is that that's not why you lost, and you need to simply deal with that. You're not playing against a Seer Council/Wave Serpent list, you're playing against a couple farseers and Shining Spears. That is not beyond the Imperial Guard's ability to handle in a match. So instead of creating a thread where a bunch of Guard players can sit around having a pity party and quietly ignore the fact that they themselves play one of the strongest armies in the game, why not have some introspection and contemplate on how you fethed up and how you can win next time? And don't be so sensitive when people point that out.

I made a Blood Angels list last week, played it against a CSM list yesterday and got absolutely wrecked- he fething tabled me at the bottom of turn 3. Shall I follow your example and make a thread and call it "Chaos Space Marines are the Anti-Fun"?

Akiasura wrote:
I saw 40k and steep learning curve and just....didn't know what to do with myself.
I haven't been this lost since tunneling was explained to me.

Unfortunately the complexity of 40k comes primarily from figuring out how to best exploit (or not exploit but live with) the imbalance.

In an ideal world, the complexity of 40k would be realising that different units have different purposes, creating an army that best combines those purposes and then employing on field tactics to best exploit that. Unfortunately we have the giant spanner in the works of dealing with large amounts of imbalance which skews those unit purposes.

You're going too far Blaxican. Too mean. Reported for excessive meanness.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I saw 40k and steep learning curve and just....didn't know what to do with myself.
I haven't been this lost since tunneling was explained to me.

Unfortunately the complexity of 40k comes primarily from figuring out how to best exploit (or not exploit but live with) the imbalance.

In an ideal world, the complexity of 40k would be realising that different units have different purposes, creating an army that best combines those purposes and then employing on field tactics to best exploit that. Unfortunately we have the giant spanner in the works of dealing with large amounts of imbalance which skews those unit purposes.

There is more to the complexity than that. I think that, because this is the internet, top-level play tends to get the most attention, so most of us don't really think about things from beyond that perspective.

In the five games I've played since June, the two that I lost I lost turn 1. The games didn't end turn 1, but they were basically just 5 turns of me dying slowly and horribly. Deployment and round 1 movement is extremely important in 40K, and there's a finer point to it that new players struggle to learn, in my experience.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
"I should be able to take any units I want and make any list I want and be able to have a 50/50 chance of winning against any opponent's list."

You're right, and I agree with you that that is how the game should be.

Well, even in an ideal world, that still wouldn't be true. 40k is a game of list building to some extent, it's just the imbalance has made it far too much about exploiting the imbalance while list building. A 40k where everything is pretty well balanced still doesn't mean you can bring any list and have a 50/50 chance of winning, it means that each unit has a purpose and if that purpose is fulfilled (through proper army list construction and on field tactics) for both armies on the table then you have a 50/50 chance of winning.

Things like "grenade launchers suck" is an imbalance thing. If the game were balanced it would be "grenade launchers are good under X, Y and Z circumstances", it still wouldn't necessarily mean that taking only grenade launchers = a good army, simply that grenade launchers have a place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I saw 40k and steep learning curve and just....didn't know what to do with myself.
I haven't been this lost since tunneling was explained to me.

Unfortunately the complexity of 40k comes primarily from figuring out how to best exploit (or not exploit but live with) the imbalance.

In an ideal world, the complexity of 40k would be realising that different units have different purposes, creating an army that best combines those purposes and then employing on field tactics to best exploit that. Unfortunately we have the giant spanner in the works of dealing with large amounts of imbalance which skews those unit purposes.

There is more to the complexity than that. I think that, because this is the internet, top-level play tends to get the most attention, so most of us don't really think about things from beyond that perspective.

In the five games I've played since June, the two that I lost I lost turn 1. The games didn't end turn 1, but they were basically just 5 turns of me dying slowly and horribly. Deployment and round 1 movement is extremely important in 40K, and there's a finer point to it that new players struggle to learn, in my experience.

I feel like that comes under "realising the different units have different purposes ... and then employing on field tactics to best exploit that." If you buy a tarpit unit and tanks, but you don't bubble wrap your tanks and/or your opponent "forces" you to move your tanks away from your bubble wrapping, then your on field tactics failed to exploit the purpose of the bubble wrapping unit.

Maybe I've just been in the hobby too long, lol, but it seems to me once you figure out what a unit is supposed to be doing then the on field tactics naturally follow.

Though you're probably right, I'm probably over simplifying it, lol.

Not trying to heat up the comments but I don't think you should blame eldar, blame the list he brought, eldar is some cases are very fun if you play friendly games and in competitive settings, your supposed to win.

I have to admit, i proxy played with the standard seerstar list and it was boring as hell.

Its an easy mode, OP army. no fun to play unless you just get hard ons from stomping most opponents.

Once upon a time in 5th Edition IG, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Grey Knights were the top dogs, whereas the likes of Dark Angels and Eldar were sub-par while Necrons and Tau were 'utter garbage,' as I overheard one fellow gamer say. I remember playing an only semi-mechanised IG army with a few Russes, a couple hellhounds, a couple chimeras, and a really ill-equipped blob-squad (not a competitive army) and yet IG frustrated people so much they still refused to play it.

Nowadays Eldar and Tau are the game-breakingly good armies, Necrons are competitive, Space Wolves and Grey Knights are the good MEQ armies, but each is starting to show its age in its own ways; Dark Angels are 'ehhh' and Blood Angels are in a really bad spot. Someday Orks and Sisters of Battle might even be top-tier, Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels could become solid competitive choices, Tau and Necrons might end up mediocre, and IG and Eldar utter garbage. Then someday after that they'll all switch places again.

This is just a part of being an active 40k player. Sometimes your army will be unfairly powerful; sometimes depressingly bottom-tier. As editions come and go there will be certain factions you always stomp and certain factions you struggle against. Is this fair? Not at all, but it's long been a part of 40k and it's no more unfair than making a pleasant (decent, friendly, good sport) player sit out an entire edition's worth of games because Games Workshop happened to make his faction more powerful than most others. Just keep calm and carry on, and eventually IG will be top dog again and Eldar merely 'okay.'

I'd offer pointers on army composition and whatnot--I think IG has a lot of good tools it can bring to bear against Eldar--but it seems a lot of this sort of advice has already been given and, well, disregarded.

I play Eldar and my friend started to play IG (he is a veteran with armies like BA and GK) this year. Matches are even and he uses Ignore Cover ORDERS (no denying) and double tap weapons to kill fe. bikes. Only thing, he complains about (when playing IG ) is Wave Serpents and i don´t like to cheese them up either...i bring maybe two in a game. I hate Necrons the most, but i still play against them. In the 5th ed. i refused to play them one time, but when the 6th edition came, it was all good again. If someone is cheesing it up (like 6 WS´s), i wouldn´t play them either. BUT, if it´s a regular list, hey, maybe it´s the own list you should be tweaking?