vaurapung wrote:
I dont have those prized net winning units. I chose to feuod gaurdians when i started playing and bought wave serpent to keep the inside of but lost so many games because the wave serepents couldnt kill anything so my games were spent losing a unit or two per turn and never getting to put hurt on my opponent. If i could do half the wounds with twice the shots i would be happier than i am.

vaurapung wrote:
the damage output of the knight was vital in this game.

Demantiae wrote:
Yeah, you conveniently bunched up in the middle there for those tanks to drop their shells nicely on your heads. Did you see white flags stuck in the ground marking out ranges for those basilisk shells too? I dunno how terrain placement was dealt with or how deployment was chosen but it looks very much like that table was designed perfectly for a shooting gallery if you deployed exactly where you did. I'm a bit suspicious about how the table was set up though tbh, all the LoS blocking terrain is one specific zone. it should be spread around unless it's a scenario based game.

But even with all that said, you could have moved down the table flanks to get close to him. Used the big guy to draw fire and run your smaller guys right up the table edge. Once they got close enough they'd have decent cover from the majority fire unless he moved his tanks.

But looking at the situation strategically instead of tactically your army has very little to actually dictate a match. It looks like you were relying entirely on the Knight to do the heavy lifting with everything else there to cheer him on. And if that knight goes down then you have nothing left to dictatee the game. The IG player on the other hand has everything to dictate the game. A wall of LR iron with great range, basilisks to rain death down on you regardless of LoS unless you shut them down and a barricade of bodies to cut through before you can get to his meat. And he doesn't have to come to you, because you have to come to him or he'll blow you off the table. His list and unit choice forces your hand, and forces you to play HIS game. With the army you had you had no option but you comply with his wish and get spanked.

What you need are units that can affect your opponents play, units that force his hand. DSing units can do this, be they super shooty, super choppy or just to be flying monkeys to stick banana's in the exhaust pipe of a tank or two. For Eldar you have Swooping Hawks, they're not particularly good at killing stuff but they can be annoying as feth and stop tanks from shooting for a turn. Warp spiders can be similar too with their jump movement, though they're more dangerous and less flexible. You have very fast skimmer units you can use to speed down the flanks - jetbikes are great for harassing and tying up potent vehicles, they also count as troops for battleforged lists. You have fast transports to put your infantry in, including one that can reduce incoming damage to ensure it gets to deliver it's load. You should be using these instead of running your infantry across the board. And lastly you could include flyers that can strike anywhere on the table with their speed and lack of firing arcs now.

If you're gonna take a bunch of walking infantry then you either need to commit to a full on gunline (like the IG player did) or you need enough dangerous and distracting units to tie up your opponents attention so they can reach their objective. But then you need to pick the right infantry to do the job you need once they arrive.

What you need to look at is how you play the game. Don't just line up guys on the table and start rolling dice. You need to think of it in terms of the dynamics of interaction. Rock, paper, scissors is a simple example of this. Another is the IG player being forced to bubble wrap his tanks to stop them being assaulted (because that's their biggest weakness).so he's committed to doing this. Therefore you can predict players will do this, so you should prepare a means to deal with bubble wrap in advance. You can either bring units that will chew through the chaff in one turn or you can bring long ranged firepower to just bypass them and strike the stuff hiding behind. Or you can drop DSing units where they'll be a nuisance.

It seems though you didn't leverage any of the inherent advantages of the Eldar - psychic power, speed, pinpoint firepower, and specialised tools for specialised jobs.

There was a really (really) old thread somewhere (may have been here, cannot remember) about armies and players being either fire, air, earth or water armies/players. Ho they all had different playstyles and how they were all countered by each other in different ways. It was a really good read, based on some ancient Chinese pseudo-wisdom or something but it was quite insightful. If you coul ever find it it might help you out. That IG list is a pure earth army, strong and powerful, but utterly inflexible and without any ability to react when the initiative is taken away from it.

vaurapung wrote:

1 hemlock would not have changed that game even played right. Now feilding 8 hemlocks might work though. But thats like 450 dollars when i own 4 wraith knights already.

vaurapung wrote:
And the wraithknight wasnt very good last ed either.

Crispy78 wrote:
I mean, yeah, it doesn't help that in the picture you posted earlier you are foot-slogging through a choke-point bridge in full line of sight of a gunline of tanks and artillery. That will always make for a very one-sided battle. (Unless of course you have access to some sort of hovering troop transport that can just fly over the river...)

vaurapung wrote:

Im very defensive in conversation especially about 40k because ive spent many years losing game after game becasue the list i build turn out to be a losers a list not matter how hard i try. Spending 2-3 hundred dollars is not the answer. First i need to find out why im losing no matter what list i take from my models.

vaurapung wrote:
I guess all my games are those one offs then.

Another thing for me to be judged on. My army list never stay the same. I run a slightly different army every game because of how my last game went.

After this whole thread im getting the notion that that is the i dont know how to play my units. I never stick with the same combination or strategy because it lost its last game.

Demantiae wrote:
So in building a list you need to sit down for several hours, if not days and hammer out multiple lists until you get an idea of what you can squeeze into one with your points limit. First try picking units you like and think are cool. then examine it and ask yourself these questions:

How do I deal with tanks (and then can I deal with massed vehicles)? Do I hvae enough solid high S and high damage weaponry?

How do I deal with infantry, particular heavy infantry (and then again, massed hordes)? Do I have enough flamers or medium S high RoF weaponry?

How do I deal with super-heavies or other large high-cost, high wound models? With all my shooting how long would it take to kill a Baneblade or a Knight?

How do I deal with fliers? Your answer can either be to counter with your own fliers, counter with ground-to-air shooting if you have the range or manoeuvrability or to simply ignore them in favour of smashing other aspects of your opponents army.

Do I have Deep Strike, Outflank, Scout Move, Infiltrate or other deployment/repositioning tricks in the list? How static is my army?

Do I need to bubble wrap my key units to protect them from assaults or deep strike? Or alternatively as Eldar, do I have enough movement to be able to out-manoeuvre my opponent and escape danger?

Is my list able to put pressure on my opponent? Can it force errors or difficult choices to be made?

If you go through your lists and ask questions like these you'll soon learn that you need certain types of units as core units, and that other units are luxury units you can afford to take one of.

I haven't looked at the new Eldar rules but I'm assuming they work mostly the same as 7th. Units like Scopions, Warp spiders, Hawks, Jetbikes, fliers and Wave Serpents filled with specialists can put pressure on your opponent quickly and in ways that are hard to predict. They all have a large threat range and can bypass units to hit more choice targets. It's difficult to know where you'll be hit by an Eldar army using these units. Now of those units, you hvae 1 CC unit, one close support shooty unit, one utility objective capturer that can be anywhere on the table very quickly, one mobile fire base and a transport that can carry pretty much anything in your army with legs. In that WS you can have other CC units like Banshee's, deadly shooty units like Fire Dragons, or even your Wraith units, depending on what you need to deliver. Taking more than one WS gives you multiple options for transportation.

Meanwhile you can take Dark Reapers for long range firepower or Fire Prisms. You can take fliers to be heavy hitters too. Infantry can be useful for grabbing objectives but then jet bikes or hawks can do that too. If you want infantry then seriously consider giving them transportation. Or having enough threats simultaneously that your opponent dare not waste good shots on shooting your lowly guardians.

Your characters should not be looking to buff your entire army at once. You should choose 1-2 units that a character will buff and keep them together. Anything more than that is a bonus. Maybe even split them so you can have psykers on both sides of the table with options to deploy your powers to whichever side needs them most.

In essence though lit building is about filling out what you absolutely need first, and with the minimum expenditure and then taking luxury picks after you've got your foundation laid. IF you need troops as tax for CP's then take the cheapest you can, unless you're short of anti-armour shots in which case throw a heavy weapon in there with them. Make sure you have something that can assault (and actually get into assault before it gets shot), something (at least one thing, ideally more than that) that has good anti-tank firepower, something that can harass or otherwise tie up key units of your opponent to buy you time and something you can hold in reserve (usually DS) that you can deploy to either press an advantage you've made with other units or you correct a mistake you've made or to help a key unit of your own that's being pressured. It's nice to have a back-up unit, a plan B that can be used in offence or defence as needed.