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I've recently started playing this again, preferring it to the second, and was wondering if I could get some help with it. Usually I like to play Eldar and verse my friend who likes to play guard, yet I'm having trouble how to get better at the game in order to put up more of a fight (maybe even win). Make it more fun for the both of us.

The main issue I seem to be having with it is no matter what I do, I managed to get boxed in by the guard and slowly whittled away. I usually try to go for a bunch of guardians, but I don't exactly rush them either. I'm also fond of the warp spiders so I tend to try to get them at some point. The problem with it though is I usually find myself outranged and too fragile to try and break through this guard wall. The other two races I try to play are Tau and SoB, yet SoB I'd say I'm the worst with out of the three. It's alright if I can take my time to set them up, but I usually won't have that time. Tau I can turtle a little with, but that just makes it take a little longer to lose.

Out of them I think I'd like to learn Eldar the most.

So any general tips and tricks Dakka would like to share would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't play for a long time but IG were one of the races that always gave me hassle, especially mass grenade launchers early on.

If you can tech up fairly quick you could try the Falcon, I think they are, rush but that tactic was mainly from the original.

I think reapers were the most used and they should be able to out shoot guardsman early on, 3 squads of Reapers maybe and then tech up to Wraith Lords because they would be getting Hellhounds. Or you can go Dark Reapers and Harlis for disruption, put the harlies on their dance of death and let the reapers shoot from a distance.

If you get to the stage of maxed out and upgraded Warp Spiders they can win you the game on their own. They are probably one of the best units.

Tau in Soulstorm were broken and I hated playing against them, their range and damage was well OP.

SoB, Celestians work pretty well and are an excellent harassment unit. If you can get the IG to follow you you still deal 100% damage on the move. 3 squads of sisters with flamers is pretty damaging and unless they have commisars the IG break pretty quick.

I'm not too sure about Eldar, but with SoB you need to be aggressive and push. It's probably the same with every race, though, at least i did the same with IG and DE. Since the Sisters can fire on the move, you can do some good hit & run at the start if you encounter an enemy vanguard early on.

What worked really well with me was to have two maxed-out squads with a Sister Superior and lots of flame throwers, and then the Canoness. I also kept pseudo-Retributors as fire support by building a normal squad on minimum size and adding as many heavy bolters as possible. Works really well if they're stationed on the flank or rear whilst your other units bind the enemy.

My standard assault formation is three Rhinos (2 squads SoB + 1 Canoness with Celestian bodyguard) and one to three Immolators, ideally with melta-upgrade. Rhinos get in close, hit laud hailers, and throw out SoB's dropping flamer templates right on top of the enemy infantry. Keep a bit of distance so as to not have them get into close combat right away, though. Also, liberal use of grenades is recommended.
To soften up fortifications, however, Seraphim with melta-bombs and Celestians with multi-meltas are a must-have. I found Exorcists to be kind of meh, but they work really well against hordes due to the "earthquake" effect of their salvo - also, that hunter-killer missile works nice on enemy superheavies or buildings.

This is more for the later game, though. To get started, have the squads fan out and capture points as you build them. iirc, my build order was two squads of Battle Sisters, followed by an additional Servitor, followed by Priests to attach to the two squads.
You need to send the infantry out right away. Add more people and upgrades as you go, but keep them on the move. Sending the Priests halfway across the map just to attach them to a squad isn't pretty, but it pays off in the resource gain. And of course always, always turn control points into relics.

if you are brave you can spam the servitor guys and send them over to the HQ and use their Destruction ability to take out Plasma Gens and Barracks

Hardly ever works but when it does it's so awesome.

So what's your actual process at the moment Not_U?

Thanks I'll try to keep this in mind.

Well at the moment I make a guardian squad, a second builder then fill out the rest of the population cap making more guardians and send them off to capture the closest points. At the same time the singers make an aspect portal and a generator. Then I have to wait a bit for the soul shrine. It just seems by the time my guardians get going there's twice as many guard.

Ok so that sounds pretty much what I would do , I wouldn't worry about maxing out the squad size until you have resource to do it with. I would say 2 - 3 squads of Guardians is enough and if you do happen to bump into the IG just run. A full squad of guardians can take out a squad of no upgraded Space Marines so they still have their purpose in later game, with their grenades and fleet they can be pretty annoying.

Maybe try getting the second wraithseer out first so it can either assist in building the portal or the generator.

That is the problem with guard, they are dirt cheap and there are a lot of them.

If your time isn't to different from mine I would happily sit on a game and watch and see if I could give you any pointers, Dawn of War is one game I never mind going back to.

Well it kind of worked.

Against marines I got boxed as normal, but I built up reapers and fire dragons. Warped out a bonesinger to where they'd left the back open and put down a gate then shoved all the fire dragons in it. Then marched the reapers out to the marines. While they fought, dragons warped in and blew up the HQ giving me my first ever win against them.

Next two were guard where I was trying the same type of thing. I had guardians being chased all over the map and used fleet to scout out the base while it was happening.
Then warped in two singers in a blind spot, but a tech priest happened to be walking past at the time. Still managed to get a gate, an aspect and half a support before they crushed it. But at the same time I built another on the corner closer to them. I managed to get 3 full squads of spiders and a seer council which managed to push through the map and destroy the HQ. But, they'd learnt so had a back up. Oh and a baneblade.

Third game was marines again, ended up having a thicker wall of marines than normal with sniper scouts everywhere. All I really managed to do was 2 squads of banshees, farseer and 3 harlequins. Which with fleet ran right through the blockade and into the enemy base. They didn't do much at all, but was fun anyway.

Congratulations on your win!

Guard are tricky because their buildings are pretty strong and can take a beast of a pounding. They can also fire out of them when they have squads hunkered inside, get enough squads and they are firing Plasma at you which can be a pain. Also if the the Techpriest is there he can repair the building pretty quickly. It's always an idea to take out builder units first, especially if they are following around a Baneblade as you know that dude will be fixing it.

Using the Bonesingers special ability can work really well on certain units as it freezes them in place for a little while, If it works on vehicles then you can freeze it and hit it with everything you have. Baneblades and the like are powerful but are more diversionary, I would always concentrate on taken out any troops before going for the relic unit, or use Wraithlords to tie it up.

Unfortunately Banshees just don't cut it against a mass as they are too fragile, you could always put them in a Falcon and off load them closer into combat letting the Harlies do there disruption, but really Reapers are a better bet.

If you can get a couple of squads of Fragoons up to the enemy HQ and leave your main force to fight it's a great distraction tactic as even a couple of bods can do a fair amount of damage if they concentrate on Plasma Gens and LPs. Wreck your opponents req and you're laughing.

Was the first DoW the one with the Infected Rush?

The first one was mainly about mass and rush yes, or that's how most people used to play it at least.

Not sure what you mean by Infected though, there wasn't anybody with a Cold or any Zombies if I recall

Possessed! I remembered. Rush tier 3, spam them, roflstomp noobs. If you did not know about that tactic, you had no chance

Ah ok, Possessed. I had a BO where I used to get possessed out in t1 and it was still pretty effective, but without the upgrades they were really slow. So would get to T2 and then the upgrade that made them faster and then get the fire breath, that would make them capable enough to beat most units.

Yeah, in the original game possessed spam was fun, then again any form of spam was fun ... apart from Dark Reaper and Bright Lance spam ... that was painful!

I think from Winter Assault onwards you can only make 1 squad of Possessed though, I know for sure that's the case in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, but possessed are a very good unit in the game.

Flayed Ones Rush. Good times.