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I recently started eldar and my LGS scheduled my a crash course against a nid player.
This are the models I have and I'll post the list of my enemie (more or less, I sort of know what he will bring as we've told each other a bit of it). And I'd like to hear what tactics I could use against them.

HQ: farseer with the spirit stone and the bow of kurnous (I have the new autarch, so I'm proxying him as the farseer, but I want to keep things as wysiwyg as possible). and the witch blade.125pts

Elites: 5 striking scorpions and exarch with the scorpion's claw. 142 pts

Troops:
1) 5 man unit of avengers, exarch with the shimmer shield and PS. 965pts
1.1) A wave serpent with TL brightlances and shuriken cannon, vectored engines, ghostwalk matrix and holofields. 165pts
2) 13 guardian defenders with spear-warlock and a EML. 187pts

FA
1) 3x shinning spears with exarch and starlance. 95pts

HS
1) 2 war-walkers with double brightlance and ghostwalk matrix and the star engines. 190pts

999pts total (Tzeentch approves)

My enemy will bring a flyrant, two blobs of hormagaunts (the shooty wants are named this way, aren't they?), two units of warriors (he fielded them with stranglers), two biovores and two zoanthropes plus something else I can't remember (not really much, I think he made his points allotment with this, almost)

And before someone yells list tayloring: I thought of this list before seeing his army, the only change I made afterwards was taking off a boatload of gear from the seer and serpent to snug in another war walker and take off the diresword and swap it for the shimmershield because I remembered no tyranid has 2+ saves.

So my idea was: our table will most likely be a sort of valley, so I think he'll try and place at least a biovore on one of the ridges at the limit of the map. the two warriors will be placed equidistantly and triangulized with the tyrant, whom will lead the offensive.
My idea is going to hunt the enemy's biggest meanest donkey-caves, barring the tyrant.

1st) I infiltrate my scorpions into a piece of terrain where I get good cover with my stealth+shroud (till I shoot or charge). their job will be to mulch the zoanthropes and or deal with the hormagaunts (most likely the latter)
2) I run the feth out of my jetbikes so I can get to charge the warriors. I'm hoping my exarch finishes one warrior from shooting and the other two die from his attacks plus the CC and shooting from the othe bikes.
3) I feth with the flyrant. Cast guide on the walkers. 4 dice rerolling would at least give a six, two with a bit of luck. will pull a wound. It's that and the possible grounding (thus losing the great advantage) or losing the shooting. It will be a nice psychological tool (that or I just go and kill him should I get the skyfire node).
4) focus my BLs on the biovores and the other warriors. Zoanthropes have a solid invuln save so I think the best option is to bully them with the scorpions or massed shooting from the guardians.
5) I use my guardians to mulch the hormagaunts, whom will survive thanks to a 5+ or better cover.

brightlance on war walkers????

I'm sure darth vader has something to say about that at the end of the 3rd film.....

take scatter lasers or star cannons, with guide from the farseer. could give you a realistic change of bringing down that flyrant. drop the EML if you have to, to get the points for it. 3 scatter laser guided war walkers is 24 shots, 4 hit, rerolling 20, 3 hit (7 total), you'll get a wound out of it for the grounding check and then fingers crossed. At worst You HAVE to make it jink, otherwise its guns will chew you up (especially if it has the template one too).

Tyranids often get loads of cover saves, so low AP stuff is pretty useless against them. Go with volume of fire, something eldar excel at.

That's why I'm bringing the lances. THere's a bit of a flaw on your math in the sense that you're ignoring the 3+ armor save on the flyrant (bloody monstrous creatures have armor saves) 4 shots with re-roll bring me to roughly 1.3 hits (so let's say 1), which is highly likely to wound but more importantly, WILL force the flyrant to jink. With laser being AP6 there's no reason why he'd jink having a better save due to his armor. I'm going to sort of bid my time and wait to see if he's forced to leave the table, while the rest of my army slaughters his.


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I'm dropping the EML and swapping it for a laser, though.


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Also, he phoned me and said he'd actually say: YES!, so did M. Bison.

Lord Kragan wrote:
That's why I'm bringing the lances. THere's a bit of a flaw on your math in the sense that you're ignoring the 3+ armor save on the flyrant (bloody monstrous creatures have armor saves) 4 shots with re-roll bring me to roughly 1.3 hits (so let's say 1), which is highly likely to wound but more importantly, WILL force the flyrant to jink. With laser being AP6 there's no reason why he'd jink having a better save due to his armor. I'm going to sort of bid my time and wait to see if he's forced to leave the table, while the rest of my army slaughters his.


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I'm dropping the EML and swapping it for a laser, though.


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Also, he phoned me and said he'd actually say: YES!, so did M. Bison.

then take starcannons, 2 shots, ap2.

that to. Though I'd like to keep it about as WYSIWYG and they have the lances already (because the meta here likes brining walls of armor).

I can't in good faith recommend a brightlances as an antiair
weapon, which is also to be used against hordes. Their only thing that makes them good is their lance rule, which is useless against Nids. If you have to play this list against others then ok, but you dont have the range of volume of fire to chop through hordes with cover saves.

Not sure who to put in the wave serpent, and also it is likely to jink a lot, so give it some scatter lasers. Can you switch the bikes to scattter bikes or are you dead set on taking the spears?

One of the easiest mistakes to make in this game is over-encumbering your unit selections. A base Serpent is fairly cheap (~110), adding essential gear isn't bad either (5 SL, 15 Holo), but yours has so much gear it's weighed to ~165. Try to scalp the unnecessary upgrades and add more bodies. More bodies, more shots!

 Cieged wrote:
One of the easiest mistakes to make in this game is over-encumbering your unit selections. A base Serpent is fairly cheap (~110), adding essential gear isn't bad either (5 SL, 15 Holo), but yours has so much gear it's weighed to ~165. Try to scalp the unnecessary upgrades and add more bodies. More bodies, more shots!

Same goes for the War Walkers - dropping the upgrades on these and the Serpent would give you around enough spare points for a third walker.

Also, as walkers are your only Heavy Support choice, I recommend putting them each in their own unit. That way you can split fire as needed and don't risk glance/pen overflows.

Which I don't have. These are all the models I have. If I could I'd have trimmed several things to snug in a second serpent wtih SL.

Ahh, got it. I know you asked for tactics up top, but b/c this is in the list forum, that's where my mind went to addressing it.

The shining spears probably wouldn't be half bad against the zoanthropes in melee, too, and moving on. Scorpions will be great, either against the hordes or the psykers.

Also, what were you thinking re: psychic powers? It might be good to get guide from the Runes of Fate, then go for telepathy. Psychic shriek could do some real damage to the bigger bugs.

Seeing how he plays his nids, the bigger bugs will be on the rear-mid field, certainly farther than 18'' from my seer. Also, many of those powers will almost be useless for a good chunk of the game against nids and taking into account what I can get from runes of fate and of battle: Mental fortitude is weaker than will of Asuryan (12'' bubble versus a unit, and I'd wouldn't have adamantium will), shrouding is redundant since I have a warlock with it already. Halucination will only work 1/3 times most of the time (there will be no characters and he'll have fearless until the flyrant and the warriors kick the bucket). Terrify will be useless til the warriors/flyrant die. Invisibility and dominate maybe (several of his units will have absurdly high Ld, and it's almost a waste to use it on gaunts) will be good but I think a 1/3 or 1/6 to get good powers is sub-optimal.
I think I'll go for runes of fate. That way I can boost my guys with guide and I have a good chance of getting the eldritch storm or fortitude (mainly so my blobs survive better thanks to cover save re-rolling). Obviously I'm picking runes of battle, so depending on how funny his looking at my warlord I may well cast fortitude (should I get it) on the guardians for a 5++ cover with rerolls or better.

Lord Kragan wrote:
Seeing how he plays his nids, the bigger bugs will be on the rear-mid field, certainly farther than 18'' from my seer. Also, many of those powers will almost be useless for a good chunk of the game against nids and taking into account what I can get from runes of fate and of battle: Mental fortitude is weaker than will of Asuryan (12'' bubble versus a unit, and I'd wouldn't have adamantium will), shrouding is redundant since I have a warlock with it already. Halucination will only work 1/3 times most of the time (there will be no characters and he'll have fearless until the flyrant and the warriors kick the bucket). Terrify will be useless til the warriors/flyrant die. Invisibility and dominate maybe (several of his units will have absurdly high Ld, and it's almost a waste to use it on gaunts) will be good but I think a 1/3 or 1/6 to get good powers is sub-optimal.
I think I'll go for runes of fate. That way I can boost my guys with guide and I have a good chance of getting the eldritch storm or fortitude (mainly so my blobs survive better thanks to cover save re-rolling). Obviously I'm picking runes of battle, so depending on how funny his looking at my warlord I may well cast fortitude (should I get it) on the guardians for a 5++ cover with rerolls or better.

my last reply if you're going to give me this attitude.

Shrouding is the whole point of this. Read it carefully. Warlock gives shrouding to himself (and therefore the unit he's in), farseer gives it to himself and anyone else within 6" of him. Therefore You can give 3-5 units cover saves (2++ on jinking shining spears).

You have a "good chance of getting" eldritch storm or fortitude, but not a good chance of getting invisibility or shrouding? ok.

You can always buy guide with your remaining dice. So throw one dice at telepathy. If you dont get shrouding or invis, then throw again, and put the 3rd one into fate and switch it for the primaris (guide) if you have to.

It wasn't clear in your initial post (although guessable) that this was all you had to choose from. Therefore, take the above advice or splitting up the war walkers (squadrons cant split fire and overkill is a thing, as mentioned above).

One sneaky thing you may be able to do, but would require you to drop as many upgrades as you can from the wave serpent, and other units, to upgrade your farseer to eldrad and / or your warlock to a spiritseer (basically a level 2 warlock). Going from 4 dice to 6 is a massive boost, considering eldrads abilities as a psyker, and 4 dice instead of 3 massively upgrades your chances of getting the power you want ) (72 to 91%). Eldrad is an absolute beast too, with force weapon, and denies on (4's (psyker, and level 4), rerolling any failed dice, instead of your farseers 5's when targetted).

Also consider holding as much as that cannot shoot off table for as long as possible, if he has that much dakka, infiltrating units will just give him targets for his otherwise short ranged guns. Their devourers are only range 18, so you'll only be in range turn 2-3, but infiltrators will be in range by turn 1.

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to act ill-mannered. My bad for not saying it explicitly, that is my fault.
When I meant a good chance of getting a good power I didn't mean as: I have a 1/3 or 2/3 chance, but rather: whatever I roll I'll put it to very good use. Eldritch storm can potentially wipe out half the army (or blow a nice chunk should I play it safe with WC3), mind war can be useful to snipe multi wound enemies, doom gives me shred (which means I can wipe out the enemy units with a good to hit roll) and fortitude will be brutal with the scorpions: with their shroud and stealth they'll get 2+ cover saves in any piece of terrain, so with fortitude they'll suffer 1 wound per 36 dice. The idea I had for them was to use them as a distraction ( specially should I get fortitude and go first, placing them at 18'' from the enemy) or as a way to score linebreaker and swipe the rearguard of the enemy (with outflank) without compromising the wave serpent into going into the enemy firing lines.
I'm not an extremely lucky guy when it comes to dice rolls, so my preference here lies in the discipline that gives me the most re-rolls or gives me the most to wound dice rolls. And I know I can get those two powers but I can also not get them and I'd like to have 4 spells that will be really useful depending on the situation (like guide+doom on the flyrant) no matter what. In runes of fate the only which may not be extremely useful may be executioner but could see some use aginast the gauns to potentially kill half a dozen of them and get their unit thinned down.

Yeah, I know I can get shroud to units with 6'' of the seer, but I think I'll disperse my forces (he'll bring quite a few templates, at worst 4-5 units which will use them) so, at best, I'd bring a single unit to shrouding, perhaps the war walkers, which have already a 5++ and wouldn't benefit from cover from intervening models against the flyrants (we house ruled that way). The only unit that would benefit from shrouding would be the wave serpent and that would require her to jink for a 2+ cover (brutal, I know) but that would require me to sacrifice my shooting while also foregoing the serpent's mobility (I would use it, if I could cast blessings inside transports) which it's one its prime advantadges. The dire avengers will also have a 5++. Yeah, I know they'd crank it to 3+ cover saves but my plan is to use them with the serpent, shoot, and then jump back into the serpent, which won't be anywher near the guardians.
Invisibility is nice but since that guy whom played grav-stars every match we're not particularly fond of that power.
I'm going to heed you and upgrade the warlock to spiritseer, dropping most of the upgrades on the war-walkers.

cool, sounds like we've got a happy balance there.

Couple of things to point out now that i've reread your list/models.

You can convert the 13 guardians into a squad of 10 and a support platform . its a little cheeky given the modelling but valid enough. and the doomweaver is really fun. Given that its barrage it means you have a better chance of allocating wounds to whatever you want to, such as sniping off character

Consider going for divination on the psykers, for 2 reasons. one its really fun, pretty much whatever you roll with a lvl3 psyker, and secondly its actually pretty potent.

Prescience is better than guide as it affects all attacks not just shooting, foreboding is awesome (reroll hits, wounds and failed saves!), a 4++ invul is great, ignores cover will be crazy for your shooting, if you can find the points, getting the stone that reduces warp charge by 1, for both fate and divination is amazing on farseers, hard to describe quite how good it is).

Use battle focus liberally, spreading up on this flamers is hard but necessary, and make a plan and stick to it.

Good luck!

Now that I've read the spirit seer's entry, I think I'll follow your advice but using him instead. I'm not granted shrouded but I could be very lucky and get both of them. Runes of battle didn't particarly interest me (though it has really good powers) so I'll shell out for telepathy with the spirit seer, and I'll take a look at the doomweaver. If I get enshrouding I'll try to luck out invisibility and if I get invisibility or another one I'll go for the primaris.

I guess I should have commented how things went.
IT WAS BALLS TO THE WALL AWESOME.

He went with a flyrant, mawloc, 5 genestealers and 10 termagaunts, plus 2 formations ( one with a boatload of warriors and gaunts of both flavors; another with a lot of spores)

The powers I got were good and I got a nice mileage, but I can't shake off the feeling I could have gotten more mileage with a skyrunner (which is in my to-buy list). My spiritseer worked quite nicely. THough not at first, my first psychic phase was an utter fiasco, getting only shrouded along the way.
My war-walkers went down on the first round of shooting, netting the enemy 1st blood but allowed the distraction for both my striking scorpions (which had been ignored and managed to infiltrate 14'' away) and shining spears to charge the warriors. The spears wiped out their target but died as the whole tyranid army gunned them down. The scorpions, though, were the stars of the show: they killed the warriors plus 2 units of gaunts (1 horma, and 1 terma) plust several models of a third unit, effectively wiping out a quarter of the enemy army.
The tyrant messed a perils of the warp, landed, and was blown apart by the serpent's lances and the shuriken cannon.
The avengers weren't much useful, though they did their job at holding the objectives and acting as denial unit plust wiped a few of the enemies.
My farseer and half the guardians were killed by the mawloc, the look out sir and invul saves failing the poor sod.
i couldn't snatch victory, though. We ended in a draw 8 to 8, having to call it a day at turn 4. Had we continued I would have lost, as 3 units of gaunts would automatically come out of reserves and I doubted I'd be able to snatch enough points with 3 units less than him.
I had a lot of fun, though.