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Iv'e just started up with the Black Templars and I'm having real trouble fighting Eldar. The worst part he's my main opponent,  generally I lose, it's about a 2/1 ratio so I was hoping on any tactica to defeat Eldar in 1500 to 2000 point games. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers   

Step 1 - Take an Inquisitor with Emperor's tarot and psychic hood.
Step 2 - Get first turn if at all possible.
Step 3 - Shoot down his vehicles before they start moving

Repeat and serve freshly warm with a slice of cheese.

What's in his army? Tactics to defeat 90 Guardians and an Avatar will be different than tactics to defeat 3 Falcons and Harlies.

Posted By lords2001 on 11/08/2007 8:53 PM

Repeat and serve freshly warm with a slice of cheese.

What?  It's not like he's making his opponent apple pie.

No, but it is a recipie for victory Cheesey though.

But yes, a 3 falcon list is different to a hoard list. Though if templars are having issues against a combat hoard list, then something is rather wrong.

lords, do you play on a terrainless board?

Aristotle, what units do you have in your army?

Yah, we are going to need more information on what both you and your eldar opponent can bring to bare before we will be really able to help you. We might be able to make some assumptions with the templar army, but eldar armies can vary widely.

If he's facing mech Eldar then I can probably throw a wee bit of advice in there being both BT and an Eldar mech player (still painting up my eldar army).

The biggest amount of multi strength 6 or 7 weapons in the BT army are Termi Squads with 2 Ass cans. Give them Tank hunter and that's how you get the strength 7 weapons.

Other than that you could take 3 destructors.

3 x 2 tl bs4 autocannon shots could do damage as well towards skimmers.

The best vow for a BT army against most eldar armies would be abhor the witch.

The sheer amount of Eldrad and Farseer models out there would justify this.

It may even be worth the other one that gives you a save against psychic powers (good against doom, mind war,
eldritch storm).

It may even be worth switching all your melta guns in your crusader squads for plasma guns (more chance of glancing skimmers).

Dont forget if your finding yourself facing a bright lance heavy army then you can always put blessed hull on your LR's which negates the Lance rule.

I've also found that facing las razorbacks can acount for the odd skimmer (usually WS) as well.

Hope this helps.

Generally in his army he takes a DA squad, Pathfinders, Storm guardians Wraithlord Farseer with warlocks Shining spears warwalkers, and a Falcon I think.

I ussually take 3 15 man crusader squads chap Emperors champ with Abhor 2 dreads a assault squad and some attack bikes

Here is combination of two units for dealing with foot slogging Harlequins:

Inquisitor w. null rod, psycannon
gun servitors w. heavy bolters

Callidus assassin

Inquisitor and his henchman are unaffected by VoT since he has a null rod. The Callidus can come beside the Harlies and flamer them with the neural shredder. This is a shake and bake tactic that is extremely effective. I told one guy a local tournament I would bring this and he immediately changed out his Harlies for Banshees.

- G

He changed out footslogging Harlies for footslogging Banshees? I don't see how that would have helped him one bit.

Aristotle wrote:Generally in his army he takes a DA squad, Pathfinders, Storm guardians Wraithlord Farseer with warlocks Shining spears warwalkers, and a Falcon I think.

I ussually take 3 15 man crusader squads chap Emperors champ with Abhor 2 dreads a assault squad and some attack bikes

Ok, now we got something to work with.

First off, you should mostly ignore the falcon. If you got a good shot on it, feel free to take it, but if they falcon has been shaken that turn, don't waste any more firepower on it. If your opponent moves the falcon in such a way that you can get a squad into its rear arc to fire bolters (at 12" or less), this is also a move worth doing since it has a decent chance of damaging the tank while expending only "low value" shooting attacks.

Dire avengers are not too difficult to deal with. Just shoot them and attempt to avoid getting too close to them. Heavy bolters do wonders to them, so if you have any, point them at the dire avengers if you can catch them out of cover. If they are in cover, then anything you can point their way is just as good as anything else. Remember, they have an 18" range, so if you stand in the 19"-24" range, they will have to move up towards you (which they could do) in order to fire. You can use this to your advantage to force them to move out of cover.

If you can get anything into hand to hand with the pathfinders, they go away, so you may want to give that a try with your assault squad if you get the chance. Otherwise, they are also a target not really worth shooting at. 2+ cover saves are just too much to really deal with. Additionally if you can get cover saves from their shooting, they stop being much of a threat. As a side note, these guys drop like flies to flamer fire if you can get one in position. If you need to block off a fire lane from them, move a dreadnaught into their line of sight. If nothing else, they will have to take target priority rolls to shoot something else.

Storm guardians are a joke. Get into range and bolter them off the board. And when I say range, I mean 24". Just stand and shoot at them. What are they going to do about it, run closer? If they do, move up and shoot twice at them. If they live though that, there won't be much left. If they run away, who cares, they can't do anything to you till they get within 12".

The farseer and warlock squad is a tough nut to crack if they are sporting fortune. The best way to get rid of them is lots and lots of bolter fire. Just pour it on until they go away. You can also engage them in hand to hand if that works better for you. They always wound on 2+ but you always get your armor save, so they are not really scary. They also only have 1 attack base each, +1 for two weapons. They won't take causalities fast though. If you got a power fist in your squad, make absolutely certain it ends up in base to base with the farseer model. That will allow you to pour all your power fist attacks on him and you can pray you insta-kill him. Note: whatever you do, don't let these guys get close to your dreadnaughts, they will tear the dreadnaught to pieces.

Shining spears are a decent tie up unit, but they don't pack too much punch. Just get a power weapon or power fist on them in hand to hand and they go down quick enough (exactly as fast as marines do). Try not to get bogged down too much in them and make sure they don't get the chance to snipe your character (which they can do if they can work out a charge on him).

The dreadnaught is easy enough to deal with, just get a power fist sergeant into hand to hand with him. He can't single out the power fist sergeant and the sergeant will drop him in a couple of rounds of hand to hand. In the mean time you lose 2ish marines a turn. Its a trade that has you coming out on top.

Now we come to public enemy #1, the war walkers. These things are tremendously dangerous. I'd be hard pressed to find another unit in the game that can pump out the sheer raw fire power of a squad of war walkers. Their long range weapons tend to keep them fairly safe so that's one of the first things you will need to try and overcome. This is probably best done by your attack bikes. Regardless of the weapons on them, move them to a point where you can shoot the war walkers and let rip. I would recommend that any heavy weapons you have in your army should be pointed at the war walkers on the first turn if possible. Remember, each time one of your units fires at them, hits are distributed evenly amongst the squad so not all the damage can be piled onto one walker.

Hope that helps.

The only problem with your tactics is all My marines are armed with BW CCW combo to make the most out of combats

Aristotle wrote:The only problem with your tactics is all My marines are armed with BW CCW combo to make the most out of combats

Hummm, that complicates things tremendously. Running down eldar is going to be really hard. Now I understand why you are having problems. The thing you army really lacks is mobility. You don't have speeders, you don't have rhinos, and you are not deep striking anything so getting into the eldar's face is going to be difficult. One trick you may need to try is advancing up behind your dreadnaughts. The dreadnaughts are the most durable of your units and it doesn't seem like the eldar have too many heavy weapons to take them down from range. If you walk your marine squads up behind them, they can possible provide you some cover and force target priority tests on the eldar units (you can ignore the closest infantry unit to fire on a large target, but you can't ignore a close large target to fire on infantry). That might be enough to blunt his short ranged firepower. You are going to have to focus any long range fire power you have on the war walkers or they will eat you for breakfast. If you need to bog down one of the eldar units, you can try assaulting with one of your attack bikes. Just charge into the guardians, dire avengers, or pathfinders in such a way as to minimize the attacks they will get on you. You should survive the first round of attacks. The second round, after they pile in, will probably be the end of your bike, but it will mean that they won't be able to run away from you that turn and if you planed things out correctly, you'll have one of your marine squads in range for a charge.

On the flip side, what other models do you own? If you can, I would recommend getting some regular bolter marines or some rhinos into the mix. The added range and/or mobility will really help you out. If not, then squeezing in some more heavy weapons (however you can work it out) would also help. If you can manage that, you can possibly outshoot him and force him to come to you (rather than the other way around).

I'll give that a try but first I might try this list
Marshal w/ Jump Pack, Claws, HOA, Combat Shield, Frags, Teleport Homer - 171
EC w/ Abhor the Witch - 110
6 Terminators w/ 2 Asscans - 280
6 Terminators w/ 2 Asscans - 280
8 Initiates w/ PF, Meltagun - 153
8 Initiates w/ PF, Meltagun - 153
7 Assault Marines w/ PF, Plasma Pistol - 174
7 Assault Marines w/ PF, Plasma Pistol - 174

With this list I got earlier it should be competitive

TH on the Termies would be a good idea. It would allow one squad to reliably shake the Falcon, and the other squad to take down the War Walkers in no time at all. Without TH, you have no reliable long-ranged anti-vehicle shooting.

I would advise you to ignore the falcon if you have something else to shoot at. Its not going to do a whole lot of damage to you (although it could cut into the terminators if your opponent tends to put a star cannon on it). Just try and keep any "good" targets (your terminators primarily) for it in cover and you'll be fine. You don't have a tremendous amount of fire power and pouring it into the flacon is a waste when you could be wipeing out squads. On the other hand, putting tank hunter on at least one squad of terminators would greatly increase its power against the war walkers and the falcon so it might be worth looking into. How much does it cost and what could you possibly drop to get it? Dropping the melta guns and possibly the plasma pistols might be worth doing to make it happen. I would avoid dropping any models though since you squads are already on the smallish side.

If you keep your Marshal with one of the assault squads in the beginning and move them forward to get the terminators into position, it should work out fairly well. Just a couple of things to note: One is that you want your Marshal to be mixed into the assault squad so that the eldar can't maneuver around and get him to be the closest model to them and thus single him out for shooting. You also don't want to attach him to the squad because if they break for any reason, he could get pulled out of position, or worse, targeted with torrent of fire. The other thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't be afraid to not use your teleport homer. If your terminators come in on turn 2, your homer might not be in the best place for the terminators to show up. If that's the case, then just deep strike them as normal and hope for the best. And as always, be careful where you deep strike things. Try to land in places were the enemy isn't going to be able to get much return fire on you the following turn.

I think you are going to find that the meltaguns in your initiates squads are not going to see much use. There are only 2 good targets for them in the eldar army, the dreadnaught and the falcon. Both are things that are not really worth shooting at with short range weapons. I would recommend swapping them out for flamers or maybe a plasma gun if you can (note: the plasma gun is actually better at hurting both the flacon and the eldar dreadnaught at 7-24" than the melta gun due to the fact that it gets 2 shots at 7-12 and gets a shot at 13-24")

So in short:
1) Kill the war walkers fast. Deep striking terminators should do a number on them.
2) Stay out of line of sight of their long range shooting as much as possible.
3) Ignore the flacon unless you can get rear shots on it or you have no other targets.
4) Kill the eldar dreadnaught in hand to hand, preferably with initiates.
5) Stick to cover whenever possible if heavy weapons (or sniper rifles) can see you.
6) Don't shoot the pathfinders, kill them in hand to hand. The only exception to this is if you can flame them.
7) Don't be afraid of the farseer and the warlocks, you don't have any units they are good at killing, but they can tie you up forever if they get into hand to hand with you...be prepared for that. Lots of bolter fire (or storm bolter fire) kills them rather quickly.
8) Don't let your characters get singled out for shooting and don't let them get into hand to hand with the dreadnaught.

Disagree heartily about ignoring the Falcon. Look at what else is in the army:

DA squad --> Easily shredded later on. Not a priority.
Pathfinders --> Even less worth shooting at.
Storm Guardians --> See DA squad.
Wraithlord --> Easily killed in CC.
Farseer with Warlocks --> Not a threat to an AV-less army.
Shining Spears --> If you're able to shoot at them in the first place, your opponent has committed an epic fail.
War Walkers --> Top priority--but one TH Termi squad shooting at them per turn should be good enough.

To put it simply, aside from the War Walkers, there's nothing else to shoot at that would be worth more (points-wise and more importantly capability-wise) than the 1-2 Termies a turn you'd lose to the Falcon. Dedicating one Termi squad to keep it shaken is worthwhile.

I feel that both of these options have merit. I play a lot of foot slogging eldar and if I see a single falcon I tend to ignore it an kill everything else. If there are multiple falcons I keep the shake lock hard on them know I probably won't destroy them but may prevent them from doing anything else while being effective.

Orion

tegeus-Cromis wrote:Disagree heartily about ignoring the Falcon. Look at what else is in the army:

DA squad --> Easily shredded later on. Not a priority.
Pathfinders --> Even less worth shooting at.
Storm Guardians --> See DA squad.
Wraithlord --> Easily killed in CC.
Farseer with Warlocks --> Not a threat to an AV-less army.
Shining Spears --> If you're able to shoot at them in the first place, your opponent has committed an epic fail.
War Walkers --> Top priority--but one TH Termi squad shooting at them per turn should be good enough.

To put it simply, aside from the War Walkers, there's nothing else to shoot at that would be worth more (points-wise and more importantly capability-wise) than the 1-2 Termies a turn you'd lose to the Falcon. Dedicating one Termi squad to keep it shaken is worthwhile.

Meh, it comes down mostly to battlefield conditions. Shoot at whatever is the biggest threat to you wining the game. If you can get your terminators into hand to hand, the falcon can't shoot at them. But if your terminators are out in the open and the flacon is armed with a star cannon, it poses a significant threat. You may have to just find what works for you, but if you are going to attempt to shake (or bring down) the flacon, tank hunting terminators are the most likely to accomplish the job. My only concern is that its not a point efficient way of doing it and the terminators are really effective at killing just about everything else in the army. So its my opinion that you will mostly be better served by directing them towards that goal. You're mileage may vary.

Granted, if you can hide everything worth shooting at from your enemy, great. But I find it is not very easy to hide from something that can not only move 12" and fire, but also hover over any sort of terrain and thereby gain unparallelled true LoS. Since you can't very well choose to add TH halfway through the battle, the possibility that you will need to shoot at the Falcon is sufficient to justify the skill's inclusion.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:Granted, if you can hide everything worth shooting at from your enemy, great. But I find it is not very easy to hide from something that can not only move 12" and fire, but also hover over any sort of terrain and thereby gain unparallelled true LoS. Since you can't very well choose to add TH halfway through the battle, the possibility that you will need to shoot at the Falcon is sufficient to justify the skill's inclusion.

Hehe, I'm not arguing about the merit of tank hunters. I think its a good idea, although I think so due to the increased lethality to the war walkers rather than the falcon. Extra lethality vs. the falcon is just icing on the cake. Regardless, how much does it cost to give 6 terminators tank hunter?

6 Terminators costs 18pts and it should be worth it in this game

What can you drop to get the 18 points. I would recomend starting with melta guns and plasma pistols (not necassarily in that order).

Marshal w/ Jump Pack, Claws, HOA, Combat Shield, Frags, Teleport Homer - 171 Sorry added up wrong it's 156
EC w/ Abhor the Witch - 110
6 Terminators w/ 2 Asscans - 280
6 Terminators w/ 2 Asscans - 280
8 Initiates w/ PF, Meltagun - 153
8 Initiates w/ PF, Meltagun - 153
7 Assault Marines w/ PF, Plasma Pistol - 174
7 Assault Marines w/ PF, Plasma Pistol - 174
So all i need to do is to drop off 1 Inntiate