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Hello everyone, very new to warhammer, have chosen Eldar as my army (mainly because I liked the back story and how the units looked) and was looking through the threads to try find good general tactics for a beginner Eldar army. Wasn't able to find a post for generalized strategies for Eldar. Things like, what are the most effective/best stragems for generalized play (outside of specific combinations), is one type of general army make up far more effective than others, are there some "must pick" psychic abilities vs ones to generally stay away from in a beginner setting.

While I'm posting figure I'll share what I have so far in hopes to point out general deficiencies (for games of any amount of point values), for me I'm not trying to play competitively, so esthetics are almost as important as usefulness (* mark the units I like how they look the most).
Wave serpent x1
War walker x1
Waithguard x1*
Hemlock Wraithfighter x1*
Wraithknight x1*
Farseer Skyrunner x1
Avatar of Khaine x1
Uldrad Ulthuan x1
Dire Avengers x10
Warp Spiders x10
Dark Reapers x10
Swooping Hawks x5
Guardian Defenders x20 with support x2
Fire Dragons x15

Well, if you had me set up your list, it would probably look something like

Alaitoc battalion

Farseer Skyrunner with Fortune and Doom
Proxy a Dark Reaper as an Autarch with Reaper Launcher

start 'em in a serpent with the dark reapers

20x Guardians 2x starcannons, using the Webway Portal deep strike
5x Dire Avengers
5x Dire Avengers

Swooping Hawks deep striking
Hemlock
2x squads of Warp Spiders deep striking
Wraithknight
War Walker

That gets a good deal of what I would assume is your favorite stuff in the list. In essence your goal will be to survive/hide as much as possible turn 1, loading Fortune onto your WK and hopefully between that and Doom he'll be difficult to take out. If it is possible to get him cover, do that (standing his base on the base of a ruin and having the ruin in front of him usually will give him cover).

Turn 2, you have a huge anti-infantry and anti-tank deep strike dropping in to deal large amounts of damage. If you have a single target (like a big blob of ork boyz, for instance) use the Doom power on them to maximize the hurt.

Stratagem wise you're going to have 8CP to work with since you'll be spending 1 on webway strike every game.

The Runes of Witnessing stratagem can be very handy if turn 1 you have a good number of targets for your Reapers, Wraithknight, War Walker and Autarch, who are basically going to deal all your damage turn 1. Feigned Retreat can be great if your 20 guardians get tied up by a small enemy unit instead of killed on the turn after they strike in. Celestial Shield is an amazing troll move for cheaply protecting your guardian blob when your opponent tries to kill them. And if your opponent has deep strike, you definitely want to stick your dark reapers next to your Farseer for Forewarned.

Learn your stratagems, and when to maximize their effectiveness. As the_scotsman alluded to, you have access to a great deal of powerful stratagems. I myself know that in a good turn, I could go through 4-7 command points.

The most common ones that would be applicable to you are Lightning-Fast Reflexes, Forewarned, Feigned Retreat, Webway/Cloud Strike, Fire and Fade, Celestial Shield and Unparalled Mastery(?).

The latter being a 1cp stratagem used when you Farseer successfully casts their two powers for the turn, it then allows them to cast a third power.

If I am remembering right, Fire and Fade can be used on the Wraithknight, allowing it to move another 7", after it's shooting phase. I tend to use this one on my own Farseer Skyrunner, to get up in range, cast a load of spells + Smite, then duck back 7" to safety.

Try to save Lightning-Fast Reflexes for when the enemy blows their big shooting for the turn at a valuable target. It can be used on all your infantry, bikes, and anything with "Fly" to give them a -1 to hit for the rest of the shooting phase.

Aside from Stratagems, I would recommend that, as per the_scotsmans suggested list above, make your Autarch the Warlord. This gives you a 6+ chance to gain Command points, whenever any are spent. On an Autarch with Reaper Launcher, I like to give them the "Mark of the Incomparable Hunter" Warlord trait, allowing them to snipe out characters with a missile launcher.

Welcome to Dakka and Eldar.

Eldar require tricks and shenanigans to work. Luckily, we have those in spades, both with psychic powers and stratagems. Learn them, love them. More then other armies we rely on overlapping buffs and effects to get the job done. Things like massed shurican fire is nice, but gets ugly when firing at something that’s been Doomed. Not just because you are getting more wounds, but more 6’s with the extra AP.

I’ve got limited experience fielding Eldar, so take my advice with a grain of salt. (They are my secondary army)

Eldar on foot tend to die. I play a primarily mechanized list. When I have to disembark, I’m normally picking the models back up faster then you can say “Dying race”.That said, when my Fire Dragons step out of their Falcon, they are not going into the great beyond alone. Eggshells armed with sledgehammers. Now there are a number of stratagems and powers that can help with survivability, The trick is you need to figure out who needs those powers when, as you can’t cover everyone.

You only have one wave serpent and a number of units that want to be in it. The wraithguard and fire dragons are both very short ranged, the dire avengers could use the ride to keep the small arms off, etc.

My general strategy is sit back and pick things off with brightlances until they get close, then disembark and shred things with shurcats. Spice with units like warp spiders/swooping hawks/bikes etc. to harass and snipe irritating things that don’t want to get close. Works for me in a more casual setting.

Jas5036 wrote:
Hello everyone, very new to warhammer, have chosen Eldar as my army (mainly because I liked the back story and how the units looked) and was looking through the threads to try find good general tactics for a beginner Eldar army. Wasn't able to find a post for generalized strategies for Eldar. Things like, what are the most effective/best stragems for generalized play (outside of specific combinations), is one type of general army make up far more effective than others, are there some "must pick" psychic abilities vs ones to generally stay away from in a beginner setting.

Eldar aren't quite as reliant on mechanization as they once were. You will likely find that a lot of the 'old guard' (seems weird saying that, but I started playing Eldar in 5th edition... still there are old guard a lot older than myself...) will swear up and down by mechanized Eldar. Mechanized Eldar was the only way to play the army halfway competitive in 5th edition (one of the only times in 40Ks entire history when Eldar were not a top tier army), and in 6th and 7th editions Wave Serpents were horrendously OP carrying Mechanized Eldar strong and fast as the dominant play style. Mechanized Eldar is still good in 8th edition, but in 8th Edition there are other tools available and Eldar naval fleets of Wave Serpents, Falcons and Fire Prisms are neither required to compete or necessarily optimal. Looking at your army in particular, you have a lot of the tools you need to make a very good list.

to answer your questions, lets look at stratagems.

Lightning Fast Reflexes is the most generally useful stratagem you have in the book, and is in large part why people get so salty about Alaitoc. It gives one of your units -1 to hit during that phase. Typically the shooting phase, but its quite good for swinging a key melee as well if you take some of those elements. Where it gets frustrating is it stacks with OTHER modifiers. So an Alaitoc unit which uses lightning fast reflexes goes to -2 to hit. And if you want to get even more awful, A Wave Serpent can take Vectored Engines which give it a further -1 to hit on turns where it advances (Wave Serpents can take 3 Shuriken Cannons which are Assault Weapons too...). So an Alaitoc Wave Serpent carrying a scary load of Fire Dragons can threaten the enemy and give itself -3 to be hit thanks to Vectored Engines, Alaitoc Craftworld Trait, and Lightning Fast Reflexes.

Forewarned You have a big squad of Dark Reapers. They love this stratagem. Keep your far seer nearby so you can trigger it, lets you intercept deep strikers and units arriving from reserves. A big squad of Reapers utilizing Forwarned can shred most any deep striking units your opponent tries to disrupt you with. Keep in mind the limitations of this strategem though. It won't work on Drop Pods for instance as the recent FAQ clarified that your Reapers using the stratagem are only allowed to fire on the Pod and not the 9 Stern guard and Lieutenant disembarking! This is a relatively fringe case as not many players take Drop Pods anymore. Additionally, you can use Forewarned before the first turn in response to Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, or even Rangers deploying. Since those are deploying from Reserves... and since its 'before' the first turn there is no limit on how many times you can punish them with this stratagem.

Webway Strike lets you deepstrike infantry. Due to the poor writing abilities of Games Workshop you can just keep using the 1 CP version because it happens during deployment and not during a game phase! Anyway, lets you deep strike infantry or biker squads which helps mitigate the need for Wave Serpents to deliver short range power shooters like Wraithguard or Fire Dragons.

Your other stratagems are good, but more dependent on whats going on. Banshees like Matchless Agility for guarenteeing long charges, Farseers like Seer Council for picking up +1 to cast, Phantasm can let you make an aggressive deployment then shift to a defensive position if you don't get first turn by redeploying 3 units. Fire and Fade can get a unit out of line of sight after taking a shot. Feigned Retreat is great on units like Wraithguard who are tough enough to survive combat and not lose a shooting phase with their expensive guns, Avatar Resurgent to get a second chance on life from him if he dies in melee. however the two you always want to keep in mind are Lightning Fast Reflexes and Forewarned as those have the biggest chance to swing the game.

Refering to "one type of general army" currently Alaitoc is the strongest. -1 to hit from outside 12 inches is an incredible defensive buff, and because it stacks so easily with the other hit modifiers available to Eldar it can be really frustrating for your opponents more so than Raven Guard or Alpha Legion.

Must pick psychic abilities:
Runes of Fate
Doom This is your most important power. You pick a unit you don't like and reroll all wounds against it. works best for that unit that absolutely must die, especially if you plan on focus firing on it. Almost required for your melee units like Banshees or Scorpions to even function. Shuriken Weapons actually become fearsome anti tank weapons because you get another chance to fish for more high AP 6s.
Fortune is a very good durability buff. Its not as great if you have a lot of vehicles with Spirit Stones, but a 5++ feel no pain save is a huge benefit.
Guide is a good shooting buff, but it only affects one unit, and doesn't stack great with the Autarch's bubble. Its still a very good power, and can be deadly on a big squad or high damage weapons.
Executioner is a great smite type spell. Good for churning out mortal wounds on a squad.
the other runes of fate powers are a lot more situational. Will of Asuryan is great against psycher heavy armies, Mind War can be good to snipe enemy characters if you have other leadership debuffs in your list,

Runes of Battle
Quicken / Restrain arguably the best rune of battle. Lets an infantry or biker take another move. you can use this to catapult Banshees or Shining Spears an ungodly distance... like 30-40 inch charges...! Or make your Dragons reach a tank your opponent thought was out of melta range. Huge amount of flexibility here.
Protect /Jink -1 to saves of enemies, or +1 to saves vs foes. Very good psychic power, especially the hex version. Use it to weaken Storm Sheilds and other powerful defensive gear before lightning them up. You can also cast it on an Autarch to get a pretty durable melee tarpit with a 2+/3++.
Conceal/Reveal Reveal is like a bad Jinx, but Conceal is yet another -1 to hit to pour on the Salt
The other powers are more situational. Embolden / Horrify is useful if you are trying to leadership bomb for mindwar, but isn't really worth the effort you put into it. Empower can be useful to help your Howing Banshees deal with only s3.
Enhance/Drain[/b] is sort of a wild card. At first it seems pretty useless, but Drain can help melee units a lot by forcing the enemy to be -1 to hit, and Enhance stacks pretty well with the Ambush of Blades Warlord Trait and generating extra hits from the Supreme Disdain Stratagem.

Generally what you want to do is make sure your units have a plan for getting in range when they need to. You can do this with the Webway Strike Strategem, your Wave Serpent, etc. Anyway, throw some lists together, see how they treat you. Honestly, your Hemlock Wraithfighter and Dark Reapers in an Alaitoc detachment should be sufficient to carry you through most casual settings!