New eldar

gruyere wrote:

I don't think we need to worry about wraithguard as much because they are slow as balls and eldar dont have open topped vehicles, if anything we benefit more now from being able to use D weapons on an allied force.

Unless of course they use raiders for their wraithguard...

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

gruyere wrote:

I don't think we need to worry about wraithguard as much because they are slow as balls and eldar dont have open topped vehicles, if anything we benefit more now from being able to use D weapons on an allied force.

Unless of course they use raiders for their wraithguard...

Yeah, in which case we are boned but at least we can do it too.

I don't know if you noticed, but Raiders are fairly easy to destroy :p

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Regarding the bike lists, we really do need to run ignores cover.

Yeah, sure, couple of Dark Reapers units will do just fine. No armor save, no cover-save, wound on 3+, BS5, those bikes will have a hard time )

Deamon wrote:

I don't know if you noticed, but Raiders are fairly easy to destroy :p

They tend to be pretty survivable. A 3+ cover save is nothing to sneeze at.

One word: Razorwings. Works against disembarked Wraithguard and certainly works against Windriders too. Also blow up that Seer Council.

Scatterlasers are powerful. But even Wyches get to use their save against that. Let that sink in. Shuriken Cannons on the other hand, never-ever disappoint, and gives middle fingers to 2+ saves whenever that 6 pops up.

Because a Jetknight spam will not be having any skyfire (nor Wraithguard). Take two or three. Unless its a CAD that looks like this:

Farseer- Jetbike, Singing Spear- 120 pts
Farseer- Jetbike, Singing Spear- 120 pts
Windrider- 9x, 9x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock w/ Singing Spear- 298 pts
Windrider- 9x, 9x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock w/ Singing Spear- 298 pts
Wraithguard- 5x, D-Scythes, Wave Serpent w/ 2x Shuriken Cannon, Holofields- 285 pts
Wraithguard- 5x, D-Scythes, Wave Serpent w/ 2x Shuriken Cannon, Holofields- 285 pts
Wraithknight- 2x Wraithcannons- 295 pts

1701 pts, 49 left to upgrade. Still no skyfire.

Farseer and Warlock form a buff nexus for his unit, whilst providing 8 guaranteed power dice. Guide and two other powers + Conceal and one other power per unit.

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Scatterlasers are powerful. But even Wyches get to use their save against that.

Scatter Lasers have AP6, so no armor for wyches.

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Because a Jetknight spam will not be having any skyfire

Why would you need skyfire? They glance our flyers on a 4+

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Windrider- 9x, 9x Shuriken Cannons,

Why would you form such a big clunky unit? Go 3x3 istead of 9 and watch how the Razorwing wastes his pieplates on a unit of 3 bikes. Havent you learned how to MSU for playing DE? Eldar are no different here.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

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Scatterlasers are powerful. But even Wyches get to use their save against that.

Scatter Lasers have AP6, so no armor for wyches.

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Because a Jetknight spam will not be having any skyfire

Why would you need skyfire? They glance our flyers on a 4+

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Windrider- 9x, 9x Shuriken Cannons,

Why would you form such a big clunky unit? Go 3x3 istead of 9 and watch how the Razorwing wastes his pieplates on a unit of 3 bikes. Havent you learned how to MSU for playing DE? Eldar are no different here.

As for our fliers, due to their lack of interceptor, will already have done their damage by the time. Even if its 1 pie plate at a time.

MSU units are great if you can keep them out of danger. I suppose the JSJ and 36" is very conducive. All they need is 1 casualty and test at LD8 though. And besides, I'll just fire a Ravager at them too and force them to jink or casualties and let LD8 do its work. Conversely 2 of these MSU units are brilliant as allies (I'm thinking of making an assaulty list with windrider support + archon wwp d-scythe wraithguard for AT/Light Transport/I-Knight duties)

Succubus- Archite Glaive, Armor of Misery
Archon- Blaster, Webway Portal
Incubi- 5x, Klaivex, Raider w/ Enhanced Aethersails, Night Shields
Wyches- 9x, Raider w/ Enhanced Aethersails, Night Shields
Wyches- 9x, Raider w/ Enhanced Aethersails, Night Shields
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC
Razorwing- 2x DL, 4x Monoscythes
Razorwing- 2x DL, 4x Monoscythes

Farseer- Jetbike, Singing Spear
Jetbike- 3x, 3x Scatterlaser
Jetbike- 3x, 3x Scatterlaser
Wraithguard- 5x, D-Scythe/Wraithcannons

Wyches are in my list because it's economical moneywise for me to get the Reavers and the Raiders, being Australian. Besides i like these gladiatrixes enough. But list is not very fluffy. The Archon/Wraithguard combo is one of those dilemma units that will force people to deal with the threat (likely after destroying what I intend for them to do), or get away from it as fast as it can.... and right into the sexy embrace of my gladiatrixes/ and chick incubi (I intend to model them as such)

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As for our fliers, due to their lack of interceptor, will already have done their damage by the time. Even if its 1 pie plate at a time.

Which damage? You are talking about shooting a single unit of 3 models with a 3+ armor and a 4+ jink. Testing against 8 is no big deal and if you think you can wipe them out, guess what, even your 9 jetbikes would have to test and are much more points lost if they decide to run away with the WL and Farseer attached.

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I'll just fire a Ravager at them too and force them to jink

Then you made 3 models jinking. Not a big deal.
Try the same with the 9 jetbikes + Farseer + warlock and you have 11 models jinking. Big deal!

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

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As for our fliers, due to their lack of interceptor, will already have done their damage by the time. Even if its 1 pie plate at a time.

Which damage? You are talking about shooting a single unit of 3 models with a 3+ armor and a 4+ jink. Testing against 8 is no big deal and if you think you can wipe them out, guess what, even your 9 jetbikes would have to test and are much more points lost if they decide to run away with the WL and Farseer attached.

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I'll just fire a Ravager at them too and force them to jink

Then you made 3 models jinking. Not a big deal.
Try the same with the 9 jetbikes + Farseer + warlock and you have 11 models jinking. Big deal!

To be honest, I'm actually thinking about anti-infantry razorwings, so i don't have to use bombs against MSUs.

Actually the big block can be ridiculously strong if buffed enough, with Conceal/Protect and possibly Fortune or Invis, and then flipped with the Conceal's offensive parallel (strips all cover i think) or Protect's offensive parallel and then Farseer's Guide + Doom if you have it or something from the Divination tree when in position to attack. This is the personal flavour i enjoy more, but there's certainly benefits to MSUs. But conversely increases its susceptibility to blast templates.

And you will get those psyker powers, because IIRC, you can choose if you roll duplicates.

No-deploy-zone can do something against Eldar, I think.....maybe..

Cerve wrote:

No-deploy-zone can do something against Eldar, I think.....maybe..

If there's something about the new eldar, is its susceptibility to any lots of instant deepstrikes as Eldar, especially of the Jetknight variety. To be fair even old WS/WK combos were vulnerable to deepstrikes, especially of the no-scatter variety (LictorShame with his Lictor-spamming, LVO winning list)

Drop Pod lists are brutal in this sense- Carlos Kaiser did one at BAO- with about 7 drop pods, 2 sternguards, 5 tacs, led by Calgar and got 2nd place. 4 drop pods on turn 1 and ability to re-roll 1s for Sternies and twin-links for Tac squads- twice, as well as one-time re-roll charge distance if need to assault something.

My variation would probably be 3 sternies and 4 tac squads, one of them with Captain in it.

If they deploy all their jetbike units, then they all die when i drop them in RF range.

First thought that came to mind for DE against the new JB's is Medusae deepstriking in Venoms. That should melt an entire squad. Dark Artisan with Liquifiers on the Talos. Wracks with Liquifiers deepstriking in Raiders or even a Scalpel Squadron with liquifiers to help wrack up some extra VP's. Then for the second wave the good old trusty Razorwing laying down blasts and equipped with Dissies. Maybe a ravager or two equipped with dissies as well as that second wave of fire. Granted you need good deepstrike rolls but you could double up on WWP's for your most most important units (Medusae) to guarantee your deepstrike.

All that should leave them fairly tattered. Also just making them jink hurts them a lot. So after laying into them with the units stated above, Venoms can move out from cover (preferably LOS blocking terrain or out of reserves) and hurt them even more.

Also if you're not playing by ITC rules there's nothing stopping you from taking maybe two Dark Artisan formations if your meta is loaded with Eldar players and the bikes.

Those are my initial thoughts.

Cavalier wrote:

First thought that came to mind for DE against the new JB's is Medusae deepstriking in Venoms. That should melt an entire squad. Dark Artisan with Liquifiers on the Talos. Wracks with Liquifiers deepstriking in Raiders or even a Scalpel Squadron with liquifiers to help wrack up some extra VP's. Then for the second wave the good old trusty Razorwing laying down blasts and equipped with Dissies. Maybe a ravager or two equipped with dissies as well as that second wave of fire. Granted you need good deepstrike rolls but you could double up on WWP's for your most most important units (Medusae) to guarantee your deepstrike.

All that should leave them fairly tattered. Also just making them jink hurts them a lot. So after laying into them with the units stated above, Venoms can move out from cover (preferably LOS blocking terrain or out of reserves) and hurt them even more.

Also if you're not playing by ITC rules there's nothing stopping you from taking maybe two Dark Artisan formations if your meta is loaded with Eldar players and the bikes.

Those are my initial thoughts.

Don't trust so much on flames. You can assign wounds only on the models under the distance of the template (7-8").
So DS Medusae will kill just...one...maybe two bikes

Cerve wrote:

So DS Medusae will kill just...one...maybe two bikes

The bikes can't be more than 2" apart, the flame template is 8" long and you have to remain at least 1" away from the bikes. If you're coming in with a WWP there's no reason you shouldn't be able to hit 3 bikes minimum, and with multiple templates in the one unit you could easily take down a reasonable sized squad. The biggest issue would be judging the size of medusa squad you need, since they're not cheap and you want to avoid overkill.

Each medusa should (on average) kill half the models underneath the template (S4 T4, ignoring saves) so I'd say that for 3 strong units of bikes you want two medusae, then possibly two more if the unit opposing you is 6 strong etc.

Also, don't forget that as long as you stay 1" away there's no restriction on where you're placed, so if the bike unit is large and adopts the fairly common 'S' shape to minimise template casualties, you can pop out of your WWP with bikes on 3 sides, maximising not only your damage in terms of models covered, but also the extent of the template in terms of range (you don't just remove casualties from under the template, but all those within range of the template, so only stuff more than 8" away from your venom is immune. And if they're being sneaky like that, then bring a couple of sslyth in the same unit, or just shoot them with the venom itself...

Exactly my thoughts. Furthermore if you gang up on them with say a Scalpel Squadron or a Talos/Chronos to multi-flame them at different angles you can further eliminate sneaky model placement.

Also those same Coven Formations will whack Freakish Spectacle on them too, hopefully forcing a failed morale check, which''ll force them away from your deployment zone, giving your Razorwings more time to pound them especially if they don't rally.

I was thinking why not just bring a ton of venoms. Always wounding on 4+ and you can take 4 for every one of their jetbike squads. At most the jetbike unit can kill one venom per turn. 48 poison shots should be able to kill them. My calculations show atleast 5 dead from all the shots in one turn.

Mindstrike1 wrote:

I was thinking why not just bring a ton of venoms. Always wounding on 4+ and you can take 4 for every one of their jetbike squads. At most the jetbike unit can kill one venom per turn. 48 poison shots should be able to kill them. My calculations show atleast 5 dead from all the shots in one turn.

Whilst you could, but bear in mind did depending on the amount of venoms you invest on and may cut into the rest of your army.

But yes, simultaneous defensive deep strikes with Venoms is definitely a hard counter to Jetbike lists, be they in large blocks, or MSUs, then followed up with Dissie/SC armed Razorwings to further hurt. Deploy 1-2 units of Talos (2 each) to allow you to survive and not lose until your guys come on- or if you are feeling ballsy, 4 units of Reavers.

Here's a 1750 pt list idea I'm toying around with

Archon- Blaster, HWG, Venom 2x SC- 145 pts
Trueborn- 4x Blaster, Venom 2x SC- 180 pts
Trueborn- 4x Blaster, Venom 2x SC- 180 pts
Trueborn- 3x Blaster, Venom 2x SC- 165 pts
Warrior- 5x, Venom 2x SC- 105 pts
Warrior- 5x, Venom 2x SC- 105 pts
Razorwing- 2x DC, SC, 4x MM- 140 pts
Razorwing- 2x DC, SC, 4x MM- 140 pts
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC- 146 pts
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC- 146 pts
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC- 146 pts
Reavers- 6x, 2x Blaster, 2x CC- 146 pts

Personally, I like the sound of these changes to the Eldar codex. They've made the aspects better at what they're supposed to do, and I think that's fun and fluffy. They don't seem too overpowered either. Specifically, I'm really pleased about the rumours regarding Swooping Hawks, that flyover attack was one I wanted to see last edition. Howling Banshees are almost playable now too. I'd argue that a lot of the stuff coming is as good as it should be for the points, rather than being slightly overcosted. Yes, jetbikes are scary, but it's not like they ignore cover. Hide and seek, same as any shooty army.

@Mr Believer, I'm broadly in agreement with you in this regard, if we had slightly more options for picking up template weapons greater than S3 then I wouldn't be bothered about the jetbikes either, as it is they have me a bit worried, but I'm going to reserve real judgement until I've played against them.

Yet another point of confusion as to why the shredder wasn't amended to become a template weapon!

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

@Mr Believer, I'm broadly in agreement with you in this regard, if we had slightly more options for picking up template weapons greater than S3 then I wouldn't be bothered about the jetbikes either, as it is they have me a bit worried, but I'm going to reserve real judgement until I've played against them.

Yet another point of confusion as to why the shredder wasn't amended to become a template weapon!

Deep striking from Reserve is your friend.

Mindstrike1 wrote:

I was thinking why not just bring a ton of venoms. Always wounding on 4+ and you can take 4 for every one of their jetbike squads. At most the jetbike unit can kill one venom per turn. 48 poison shots should be able to kill them. My calculations show atleast 5 dead from all the shots in one turn.

A unit of 3 Jetbikes is 81 points, so it is 1,2 (empty!) Venoms per jetbike squad.
So you get 6 Venoms for 5 units of 3 Jetbikes with Scatter Lasers.
Lets put aside that the Jetbikes outrange and outmaneuver the Venom (36" range and moves 2d6 after shooting, possibly breaking LoS) 12 Poinson shots from the venom average in 1,3 wounds, so in average you will need 2 Venoms to (nearly) kill a single squadron of 3 jetbikes.
3 Jetbikes on the other hand 2,6 unsaved hullpoints. So every Jetbike squad kills a Venom in return.

So your Plan only works is you get reliable to shoot first. If the Jetbikes get their Lasers on you first, you will lose all your Venoms in a single turn of shooting.
The only reason for Eldar to field really big units of bikes would be Warlock and Farseer support. In which case they will probably come with 2+ rerollable armor saves which means you need 36 poison shots (3 Venoms) to kill a SINGLE model.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Mindstrike1 wrote:

I was thinking why not just bring a ton of venoms. Always wounding on 4+ and you can take 4 for every one of their jetbike squads. At most the jetbike unit can kill one venom per turn. 48 poison shots should be able to kill them. My calculations show atleast 5 dead from all the shots in one turn.

A unit of 3 Jetbikes is 81 points, so it is 1,2 (empty!) Venoms per jetbike squad.
So you get 6 Venoms for 5 units of 3 Jetbikes with Scatter Lasers.
Lets put aside that the Jetbikes outrange and outmaneuver the Venom (36" range and moves 2d6 after shooting, possibly breaking LoS) 12 Poinson shots from the venom average in 1,3 wounds, so in average you will need 2 Venoms to (nearly) kill a single squadron of 3 jetbikes.
3 Jetbikes on the other hand 2,6 unsaved hullpoints. So every Jetbike squad kills a Venom in return.

So your Plan only works is you get reliable to shoot first. If the Jetbikes get their Lasers on you first, you will lose all your Venoms in a single turn of shooting.
The only reason for Eldar to field really big units of bikes would be Warlock and Farseer support. In which case they will probably come with 2+ rerollable armor saves which means you need 36 poison shots (3 Venoms) to kill a SINGLE model.

Depends on who gets the first turn here. If you do, you can certainly murder his big squads before he is capable of casting his powers, through a series of defensive deep strikes, followed by aerial bombings (bring dissies and sc). Position your venoms at either 12-24-36 ranges depending on your mileage and your plans for the turn after.

You don't really need to annihilate the unit of Jetbikes per se, you just need to make them test leadership, and LD8 has a good chance of it failing, as it has a chance of succeeding- kill 2 and the unit keeps fleeing until they roll snake eyes. If it is a big blob, I hope you brought razorwings, kitted out for Anti-Infantry, backed up by 2 venoms and possibly some reavers if they're lucky to be in range.

In the case that he has the turn and has gotten off all his powers, then just work on his units piecemeal with the aforementioned Razorwings (You may lose 1 razorwing).

Also in Maelstrom missions, the Windrider commander usually suffers from the dilemma of having to choose between using his JSJ to escape enemy retaliation, and lose the objective, or JSJ to claim an objective and then get caught out after. (If you, a DE player, does not have units ready to threaten the objective when he chooses this, it's your fault)

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You don't really need to annihilate the unit of Jetbikes per se, you just need to make them test leadership, and LD8 has a good chance of it failing, as it has a chance of succeeding- kill 2 and the unit keeps fleeing until they roll snake eyes. If it is a big blob, I hope you brought razorwings, kitted out for Anti-Infantry, backed up by 2 venoms and possibly some reavers if they're lucky to be in range.

I guess you realize that this is a whole lot of points dedicated to kill these little troop buggers?

In an average 1750 points game you can bring 12 units of 3 of them, 2 random farseers on bikes and 2 Knights. This is a complete overload of your shooting capacity and probably can be successfully played by a 6y old as his intro game.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

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You don't really need to annihilate the unit of Jetbikes per se, you just need to make them test leadership, and LD8 has a good chance of it failing, as it has a chance of succeeding- kill 2 and the unit keeps fleeing until they roll snake eyes. If it is a big blob, I hope you brought razorwings, kitted out for Anti-Infantry, backed up by 2 venoms and possibly some reavers if they're lucky to be in range.

I guess you realize that this is a whole lot of points dedicated to kill these little troop buggers?

In an average 1750 points game you can bring 12 units of 3 of them, 2 random farseers on bikes and 2 Knights. This is a complete overload of your shooting capacity and probably can be successfully played by a 6y old as his intro game.

Cut one Windrider unit and thats about 1750- in this case my strategy would be to kill half his force, or force it to fall back, preferably bring down his hilariously vulnerable farseers (i imagine they are alone or in three man units). I would do this via deep strikes. This list doesn't actually have enough power dice to guide and fortune every unit, and given that he can only manifest a power as many times until he fails it. I will take down or incapacitate at least 4-5 depending on how many reserves I field.

And this is just with Dark Eldar. Because a Space Marine drop pod list (proper ones, with like 7-8 pods), will be out to murder at least 4-6 units, depending on the way the Eldar player deployed, along with the Farseers, because they are so small. Sternguard will just assault any unit even without rapid fire (hello hellfire), and that's just 4 drop pods, and then the three will just come in after and drop to wherever place you move your jetbikes.

With such a large board coverage, and with boards being generally 48" long, the Scatriders will eventually get hit by bolter fire at some point. To be honest I don't even have to deal with your WKs if i use a drop pod list. I wouldn't mind the knights firing at the drop pods for target practice.

In Maelstrom, again your Windriders, has to choose between JSJ away from LOS and away from an objective or claim it, in full view of just about everyone, and chances are that objective might have drop pod parked on it. Where I live, KP & Eternal War missions are non-existent.

If I were the Windrider commander, I would probably castle up, with Wraithknights in front and leaving no room behind and pack all my Jetbikes there...

Oh wait, since the Marines essentially null-deploying, and if he win the roll-off, he'll give your first turn and you'll have nothing to shoot. And then asks: "Will you move out and claim objectives?"