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So, the Orks are coming. In a tournament environment noone can go all out against the Orks since he still has to be able to beat Godzilla Nids, Chaos, SM, Tau, Necrons and so on. However, one has to take in consideration the Orks now and make sure that none of his units are absolutely useless against the greenskins. Without really changing my usual army composition, I was thinking of something like this:

HQ:

Autarch: 130p
Eldar Jetbike, Laser Lance, Fusion Gun

Autarch: 130p
Eldar Jetbike, Laser Lance, Fusion Gun

Elites:

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Fire Dragons: 108p
Exarch, Dragon's Breath Flamer

Troops:

3 Jetbikes: 111p
1 Warlock, Destructor

3 Jetbikes: 111p
1 Warlock, Destructor

Heavy Support:

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Total: 1499p

With the mobile heavy flamers the Eldar have the initiative once again. They can focus enough units in one spot to take out a mob or two of Orks while trying to use the Falcons to block the rest of the mobs from joining the fight. Basically, with little adjustments the Eldar play against Orks just like they play against Tyranids.

Hi, I really like that list!
I think its a really good list, based on thoroughly-tested Eldar lists - and with an GEQ-twist. I like the three mobile heavy flamers its wielding.

Just one small correction though: The two Guardian Jetbike Squads (3man) w/ Destructlocks are each 121pts.... So you are 20 pts more than listed.

The list is very similiar to what i field, and it works well.

You're right of course! My mistake.

The list could look like this. I actually like it a whole lot more.

HQ:

Autarch: 120p
Eldar Jetbike, Laser Lance

Elites:

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Fire Dragons: 108p
Exarch, Dragon's Breath Flamer

Troops:

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

Heavy Support:

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Total: 1500p

Oh yeah!
Thats even better!
Wow, ill honestly have to say thats a NICE 1500pts list, vs all-comers.

Nothing to correct there for sure, its absolutely clean-shaven nasty-ness

There are still a couple of modifications that can be made that in some scenarios improve the list. By dropping the 10 point Shuriken Cannons from the Falcons (who rarely shoot since they are either transporting models and/or shaken) one can add all sorts of useful wargear, like a ranged weapon to the Autarch, Singing Spears to the Warlocks and Crack Shot to the Fire Dragon Exarch.

True - and very useful suggestions for those pts!

Out of curiosty (and own need):  What would you do, if you were to expand the list to 1850pts, or what kind of list would you suggest for 1850pts tournament list vs all-comers... (though mainly SM, Tau suit-lists, Orks)

Well since I'm not a fan of any of the fast attack choices I'd just add more of everything I already had. Five of those Destructor bike squads (with spears) backed up by two Autarchs (with lances and fusion guns), two squads of Harlequins and one squad of Dragons will smash a hole through just about anything. Both the anti-tank and the anti-horde capabilities are enormous.

11 T4 Models and 18 T3 models, and 3 tanks with minimal weapon load? To me this seems very vulnerable to any mixed comp army. Yes it has lots of high strength shots to deal with greenskins, what do you do against BA where Death company and Mephiston alone will walk through your army and all your high powered shots won't do jack against 3+/4+FNP saves?

Just something to consider ... 4 and 6 man squads are very easy to drop to non scoring status or wipe out altogether. Most MEQ army's won't be too concerned about 3 heavy flamers and Tau will have so many shots that count against everything in the army. Your falcons will be useful as no matter how many troops you loose you can count on still having at least two, if not all three of them still mobile at the end of most games to grab or contest objectives.

I think you should try it against tau, necrons and chaos and then see how you feel about it. If it still works against them then you may have found the right list.

I know that I swear by shuriken catapults and guardian squads. I have had regular guardians destroy SM assault squad and chaplain without any help from other units. They don't always do that awesome, but good cheap troops that shoot lots and can still assault ... I include 30 in every list and they rarely let me down. Now that the avatar makes them fearless they get even more bang for their buck. Two wraithlords with BL and EML an avatar and 30 guardians w shuriken cannon tear up anything they encounter. To me that is the vs all comers core of my eldar list, sprinkle in a farseer for guide and doom ocassionally, warp spiders and striking scorps for fast tricky and assault, and pathfinders for a little long range love sometimes, and a falcon for easy objective grabbing and movement denial to footsloggers.

Anyway, I'm not knocking your list ... just wanted to raise some of the areas I think you may see problems with. Please do post your success with this list as I would be interested to see if it does work as well as you think it might. I do see the potential for some of the hurt it can lay on, I just wonder about its survivability against other mixed forces.

Meph

I'm guessing that that's when Therion will be glad he has two squads of Harlies, one squad of Fire Dragons, and a lance+fusion jet-tarch (two in the earlier list). FNP? What FNP?

Feel no Pain. 4+ save (after regular) against any shooting that is not double their toughness and CCW that doesnt ignore saves.

I agree that the harlies are a good counter .. they have rend as well and will actually go before the I5 furios charge of the DC, and simo with Mephiston that is a nice advantage, and one that few units can claim. However The autarch will get eaten alive (even if he kills a few the rest will chew him up) and even at half strength just their average rends will kill a squad of 6 or less, not to mention the regular attacks.

Fire dragons will likely not have much to shoot at as an assault squads charge range is the same as the dragons shooting range ... and once engaged the squad is essentially doomed, even if they blast a model or 4 away before it gets to them.

I'll repeat I don't discount the damage this army can do, I just think it is more vulnerable to any army that can pour out a decent number of shots and follow that up with Close combat. These days Nids even shoot as good as most armies so to compete against all comers you need to be able to be able to soak some fire and still give it back on your turn. At a glance I don't think that will happen, but as it is played we may see different results.

Good luck, as a fellow Eldar player I wish you the best!

Hmmm.
The mobility on that army is really something else. With enough terrain you could avoid my shooting altogether until you get the heavy flamers into postion to fry the lootas, then you can run rings around my other units.
Not impossible for new orks to beat, but it'd be a major headache!

Mephistopheles:
I know what FNP is. I meant, "FNP? What FNP?", as in "Flavour in the Chaos codex? What flavour?"


The DC will not be charging them in the first place.


No, they will be charging him, and will go first. 4 rends on average, no inv. save--GG Mephiston.


Point is, there's only one DC, and there are 4 (5 in the earlier list) mobile, deadly anti-DC units in the list. Combine any 2-3 and they will probably wipe a full-strength DC with no casualties at all. Against Plague Marines, it would of course depend on just how many squads of them there are (usually not many), but in any case they are much less deadly than the DC are.


Positioned just right, their Falcon will block the charge.

I'd drop one of the jetbikes to get all the nice upgrades to your other units and a vyper w/ 2 shuriken cannons. I lose a flamer, but get a twinlinked one, 4 shuriken cannons, and a reaper launcher instead. The vyper also combos with the falcon-harlequin-assault and protects your hatches much better than a squad of jet bikes will. Something like this:

HQ:

Autarch: 148p
Eldar Jetbike, Laser Lance, reaper launcher, banshee mask (so that he goes before harlequins on the charge)

Elites:

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Fire Dragons: 113p
Exarch, Dragon's Breath Flamer, crack shot

Troops:

3 Jetbikes: 134p
1 Warlock, Destructor, singing spear, shuriken cannon

3 Jetbikes: 134p
1 Warlock, Destructor, singing spear, shuriken cannon

Fast Attack

Vyper: 60p
2 Shuriken cannons

Heavy Support:

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Total: 1498p

Posted By Therion on 10/31/2007 7:22 PM
You're right of course! My mistake.

The list could look like this. I actually like it a whole lot more.

HQ:

Autarch: 120p
Eldar Jetbike, Laser Lance

Elites:

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Harlequins: 162p
Shadowseer, Kiss x6

6 Fire Dragons: 108p
Exarch, Dragon's Breath Flamer

Troops:

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

3 Jetbikes: 121p
1 Warlock, Destructor

Heavy Support:

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Falcon: 195p
Shuriken Cannon x2, Vectored Engines, Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones

Total: 1500p

Absofrickinlutely brutal.

The only way I can think of off the bat to keep the Lootas alive (to punish the Falcons for building "the skimmer wall of broken" ) is to screen them with shoota Mobs that are deployed at max coherency.  And that has problems all it's own for what it does to my army tactically vs. one like yours.

Vs. the Storm Boy horde it'll be cat and mouse as you try to set this up and then I try to counter manuver and should make for a very tactically challenging game where the better player will win.  I see it very much depending on terrain setups. 

Your biggest hurdle vs. Storm Boy hordes is that you have to get the bikes within 13-15" the turn before in order to spring this on the Ork player, and that's going to let him hopefully try and prevent you from pulling this all off wholesale.   Still this is going to be very hard for Ork players and it's still rough on Marines and Zillas.

I have to ask though, what would you do vs. Necrons with this? I see them making you have a very bad day when played well and I'm curious as to how you would handle them.

That's right. What Eldar will try is move 24" with the Falcons, keeping the tanks in a column, Orks on one flank and the turbo-boosting Jetbikes on another all the while using as much terrain as possible. Some Orks will be able to shoot but the quick Stormboyz won't be able to move and assault through the tanks.


I need to squeeze in the Singing Spears for some extra Monolith hunting. Necrons play a wide variety of lists so there's no simple answer but usually I would just try to engage multiple Necron units in CC simultaneously while popping the Monolith. You know, if the Necrons deploy all their units in a huge mob where they can support eachother for WBB rolls you can deploy your troops so that each squad assaults two units in the same time meaning that even if one of the Necron units is teleported out of combat my troops won't be shot to pieces since they're still engaged. If the Necrons don't bunch up like that, there's good chance one can focus enough firepower to take down an entire unit and allow no WBB rolls at all.

Really only an idiot ever lets his necrons be denied WBB. I wouldn't count on your list shooting down squads.

Your only chance is to plow through them with harlequins and I mean only chance.

Pretty much doesn't much matter what you take besides the three falcons. Flavor in some harlequins or fire dragons and lifes a peach. Seems like the standard anymore. Although most people take the single Farseer on jetbikes to hose other psychic powers in the game and guide/doom things.

gee whiz, the usual mech-eldar bullsh!t  that's currently destroying the game. if someone brings the broken 60stormboyspam, then it'll be the same sort of frustrating stalemate you often see in eldar-on-eldar games. at the 'ardboys tournament I was at in manhattan, I don't remember a single eldar v eldar match with more then 10 combined casualties.

edit: also, what lemartes said... the list could have been rewritten as "typical eldar crap" + "9 jetbikes w/ destructorwarlocks" and still be understood perfectly

Wow, Dumbuket. Thanks for your inciteful and constructive comments.

Read Therion's sig. He plays in an environment where people DON'T bring knives to gun fights; the Adepticon Gladiator is less vicious than the usual pick-up game to be found in Finland.





As to the list - my brief flirtation with Eldar jetbikes leaves me a touch concerned for their durability, particularly when they are the only exposed infantry models to shoot at. It'll end up being a very terrain-dependent list, as even Orks can bring the firepower needed to gun down 6-9 jetbikes at 16"-20" range, particularly in the absence of Fortune.

The list lacks the firepower for a ranged duel; you have to get close enough for the Destructors to remove some of the boyz, or your harlies will run in and get stuck on mobz of auto-pass leadership size. For that to work, your jetbikes need to begin a turn at ~<=16" range. For THAT to work, you can't afford significant firepower within that effective range and LoS, while still providing targets to warrant the Destructor run. So either you need LoS-block terrain to hide behind (and an opponent who doesn't see what you're doing, and moves farther back), or you need a plan to bring him close AND deny him shots at the bikes. Sneaky tank-shocking can bring enemies closer, but means your Falcons (or at least one Falcon) have to be off-vector from your bikes (and hence not interdicting fast assaults).

Short version: how do you plan on dealing with that big mob of shootas or lootas, which are waiting to shoot up your bikes?

I imagine a maxed out loota list would give the eldar headaches, they aren't that much more than the falcons and certainly less than the combined falcon/cargo value.

I can't be bothered working out the random shot factor, but assuming an average 2 shots per loota squad then the orks have around about a 70% chance of downing (kill or immob) at least 1 falcon per turn, with about something like a 20% chance of bagging 2 falcons.

Barring really good terrain it looks like the lootas will get a good 2 turns (your turn1 moving up, turn2 assault 'preparation' moves) of full on shooting at the falcons, at which point they have (again going on 2 shot averages) something like a ~29% chance of taking out all 3 falcons, ~32% of 2 falcons and ~29% chance of 1 falcon. {edit slight adjustment of figures}

There aren't many lists that can put that much hurt on the falcons for only slightly more points than the falcons cost, and do it such a short period of time. In fact bearing in mind the points aspect and time aspect there possibly aren't any other lists that are that good.

Ignoring having a great terrain setup which allows you hide after turn1 as well, A lot could depend on getting those bikeloks to flame the lootas before they fire a second time, or lock them in combat.

janthkin - did you misspell insightful, or is that just an awkward pun? anyway, it doesn't matter. he can lose the bikes and still get the job done with the everything-proof falcons and the harlies. it's a 31 model list with 21 virtually indestructible models (18 of which achieve their invulnerability by cowering inside their transports). I think eldar will do fine regardless of what's thrown at them.

It's kind of amusing to hear folks harping about the nuanced tactics of the eldar. what's so complicated about speeding a bunch of falcons up , terrain hopping for a turn or two, and dumping a steaming load of spaceclown in someone's face? I've watched people win gt games that way. heck, *this* list's tactics hinge upon the ork player being unable to do anything to the falcons while they box in his mobs... it's more of an exploit than a strategy, since no other army in the game would expose 1/3 of their army list with such impunity

puree - if the ork player decides to dump 675 points to max out thier lootas and they all roll a miraculous 3 shots with *all* of them, they're still only going to down a spiritstoneholofieldvectoredengines falcon 40% of the time. and that's 135 autocannon shots. and that's assuming he doesn't hide his falcons out of LOS turn one.

this list is the usual 3 falcon trash... hardly eldar "redefined. and yes, I know "therion's from Finland and in scandinavia everyone uses borken lists and blah blah blah". It just seems like a lousy way to play the game.

Posted By dumbuket on 11/02/2007 5:43 PM

puree - if the ork player decides to dump *** points to max out thier lootas and they all roll a miraculous 3 shots with *all* of them, they're still only going to down a spiritstoneholofieldvectoredengines falcon 40% of the time.

You are way out.

3 units of lootas at 3 shots each unit firing at a single falcon has a 67% chance of killing falcon and a further 17% of immobilising it.

You're probably better off if you moved on to a different target if you immobilised it with one unit though - each individual (3 shot unit) unit has a 13% kill chance and 30% immob chance. that gives you an overall 41% chance of downing 1, 31% chance of downing 2 and an 8% chance of downing all 3.

Of course 3 shots for 3 units is lucky as hell, that is why I stuck to 2 shots per unit before.

Hehe, I really like you a lot! I see you don't care for Mech Eldar but where I'm from it's the only way to play Eldar and get away with a win. Nevertheless you're absolutely right on most points. When tables have a lot of terrain there isn't a real way for Eldar to lose since they can just minimise their casualties and storm the mission objectives in the last couple of turns. In my opinion this mobility advantage needs to stay in the game or become even stronger than currently. I've played my share of IW vs IW games to know its not a lot of fun and certainly even less challenging than pushing those three Falcons forward.

There's plenty of those idiots around. I've already described how I would play against the all Necrons in one basket/Necron mob/Necron bunker deployment but there's a lot of variables included like the mission and the terrain available to me. Harlequins plowing through them my only chance? Well, that, collecting some VPs from the Monolith, and of course tank shocking each Necron unit three times per turn and making them fail morale checks, and staying close enough to the squad to prevent them ever rallying

Posted By Therion on 11/02/2007 11:01 PM

this list is the usual 3 falcon trash... hardly eldar "redefined. and yes, I know "therion's from Finland and in scandinavia everyone uses borken lists and blah blah blah". It just seems like a lousy way to play the game.

Hehe, I really like you a lot! I see you don't care for Mech Eldar but where I'm from it's the only way to play Eldar and get away with a win. 

sorry... got a bit carried away. apologies for the strong language and whatnot. still, there's no need for sarcasm.

I just find my games against eldar to be dull, painful experiences. I don't necessarily lose (it's usually a draw) but nobody seems to do (or kill) very much.

I think your math is off, puree

giving the orks the improbably generous 3 shots per loota for all three full mobs, you get 135 shots

135 shots -> 45 hits -> 15 glances on av12 (like they're really gonna let you hit the back)

15 glances -> 2.5 destroyed results which, after rerolls = 0.416 destroyed results. (and 0.416 immobilized results)

although, I did ignore the possibility of accumulating a bunch of immobilized+weapon destroyed results

I wasn't being sarcastic. I like people who aren't afraid to say what they really think.

Posted By dumbuket on 11/02/2007 11:55 PM

You are way out.

3 units of lootas at 3 shots each unit firing at a single falcon has a 67% chance of killing falcon and a further 17% of immobilising it.

You're probably better off if you moved on to a different target if you immobilised it with one unit though - each individual (3 shot unit) unit has a 13% kill chance and 30% immob chance. that gives you an overall 41% chance of downing 1, 31% chance of downing 2 and an 8% chance of downing all 3.

Of course 3 shots for 3 units is lucky as hell, that is why I stuck to 2 shots per unit before.

I think your math is off, puree

giving the orks the improbably generous 3 shots per loota for all three full mobs, you get 135 shots

135 shots -> 45 hits -> 15 glances on av12 (like they're really gonna let you hit the back)

15 glances -> 2.5 destroyed results which, after rerolls = 0.416 destroyed results. (and 0.416 immobilized results)

although, I did ignore the possibility of accumulating a bunch of immobilized+weapon destroyed results

You are trying to convert mean averages to percentage chance per turn. They don't directly correlate to each other like that.

Yes I did include the accumulation of wpn destroyed/immobs etc, and also the chance of the first/second unit immobilising which allows subsequent units to penetrate.

Necrons are very hard to beat with this list. Theres no answer to the monolith and no matter how good Harlequins assault once, they will very likely die to shooting afterwards.

The first step towards a solution imo is to swap Dragons/Falcon with a single Prism, which has advantages against allcomers as well. Here they are:

- opponents will spread their infantry, which helps the mobile eldar to pick at isolated targets.

- teleporting (monolith or vail for examle) gets a lot less rewarding.

- the big blast is great vs hordes (which otherwise counter Harlequins).

Loosing Dragons on the other hand is not as bad as it might seem:

- Two remaining Falcons nicely deal with light vehicles (Tornados for example), and do ok against medium tanks like Predators (hitting side armour) or other Skimmers.

- The rare heavy tanks like Landraiders are not that scary. Or in the case of a Monolith, the Dragons do poorly anyway.

To sum it up against Nidzilla, Orks, Necrons and propably even Eldar, Tau and Guard I would prefer to have the Prism instead of Dragons/3rd Falcon. Against Marines the Dragons wouldnt be missed much.

Finally the Prism gives us an elite slot and about 100 points to play with.

Posted By Janthkin on 11/02/2007 2:33 PM
Read Therion's sig. He plays in an environment where people DON'T bring knives to gun fights; the Adepticon Gladiator is less vicious than the usual pick-up game to be found in Finland.

Is that a fact?  So you play at both the Adepticon Gladiators AND in finland all the time?

...thats such rubbish when people say that.  Not to take anything away from Therion, I'm sure he knows what he's doing in a game,  but I havent heard this claim of Finland being the world capitol of awesome gamers.

 

More to the point of the post, is it just me or am I the only eldar player around who finds falcon rush boring, played out, and uninspired?  I took a falcon to the 'Ard boyz and almost regret it.  I just really prefer the 'firepower' side of things that the Eldar can offer, the type of firepower that scatter laser armed warwalkers and scatter/shuricannon vypers can bring.

wouldnt a really effective list against orks be scatterlaser spam?  with so many shots you dont need AP to kill marines...I slaughter terminators with scatterlaser fire every day...it seems like a good idea to do this with the orks.

I havent figured a 1500 pt list, but it seems to me that 9 of said vypers and 6 or so warwalkers would do a serious job on orks before they get across the board.  Of course the resiliancy of falcons isnt there, but you'll bump your firepower tenfold by giving them up. 

Not worth it. In any top tier army each unit is potentially underpriced and overpowered. Falcons do more than their points cost suggests, as do Harlequins and Fire Dragons. Vypers and War Walkers unfortunately do not. I will never use a unit that can't hold its own in a point by point comparison with the most powerful units in the game. Vypers for example are the worst scum of the skimmer class in all of 40K so I see no place for them in my army.