Troop Tactica

I thought I would start the ball rolling with a tactics thread on the troops that are in Codex: Eldar. There is three normal basic troops plus one other troop choice that are in the Codex. Dire Avengers, Guardians and Ranges are the basic, plus we have Wraithguard. I will not be doing one for Wraithguard because they are normally an Elite Choice and I will let someone else do them in an Elite Tactica.

I will first start with Dire Avengers:

The Dire Avengers are the real soldiers of the troop section. They have the basic Eldar stateline of 3 Str and T making them alittle weak when being shot at or in close combat. They do have WS and BS of 4 making them hit better in close combat and shooting. They have a Avenger's Shuriken Catapult which is a 18" Str 4 Ap5 Assault 2 weapon. They also have a +4 save. They can be upgraded with an Exarch which has WS and BS 5, 2 Attacks, and a +3 Save. The Exarch can be upgrade with a Diresword and Shuriken Pistol, Power Weapon and Shimmershield, or Two Avenger's Shuriken Catapults. The Exarch can also take some Exarch Powers aswell, these are Defend and Bladestorm. I want to take alittle bit about the Exarch's options now. The Diresword is a power weapon that forces anything that takes an unsaved wound from the weapon to take a Leadership Test and if fail dies from Instant Death and the Pistol is just a pistol. The Power Weapon is just that but the real gem of this option is the Shimmershield which gives the squad a +5 Inv Save in close combat. The two Avenger's Shuriken Catapults give him the same profile as a the Avenger's Catapult but with Assault 4. The Defend power makes it where any unit in close combat has one less attack when in close combat with the squad but doesn't make it less than 1. The Bladestorm power makes it on the turn you use the power the squad can shot one more shot per Shuriken weapon in the squad. So Avenger's Catapults are Assault 3, and the Exarch with two is Assault 5 but you will not be able to shot the turn following turn with it. The Dire Avengers may take a Wave Seprent as a transport.

The two best builds for Dire Avengers are Objective Camper and Gunners.

Objective Camper build:
10 Dire Avengers (One being the Exarch)
Exarch with Power Weapon, Shimmershield and Defend Power.

This squad does great in holding an objective in cover. With the Defend power they will be getting less attacks thrown at them and with Shimmershield they have a chance at saying Power Weapon attack.

Gunners build:
10 Dire Avengers (One being the Exarch)
Exarch with Two Avenger's Shuriken Catapult and the Bladestorm Power.

This squad is for shooting down things with a weight of firepower. This squad can pull off 22 shots normally and 32 after using Bladestorm at 18".

I will now talk about Guardians.

They are the basic of the basic troop choice. WS and BS of 3. Really they are just Imperial Guard better Int and weapons. There is two different types of Guardian squads. First there is the basic Guardians with Shuriken Catapults, 12" Str 4 Ap 5 Assault 2, and a Weapon Platform which can have a heavy weapon on its. The weapons it can choose from are Shuriken Cannon, Starcannon, Scatter Laser, Missile Launcher, and Bright Lance. The Platform also makes this weapon Assault so it can still be fire if the squad moves. The Platform needs two crew from the squad, at least one of these crew need to be within 2" of the Platform and the other anywhere in the squad, and either of the crew can shot it by giving up their Catapult shots. If both crew die the Platform is removed. The other type is Storm Guardians these replace the Catapult with a Close Combat Weapon and Shuriken Pistol. They also give up the Weapon Platform aswell but can take up to two Fusion Guns or Flamers. Both types can take a Warlock and Wave Seprent.

Example of a basic Guardian Squad:
10 Guardian
Missile Launcher
Warlock with Concel or Embolden Powers

The Missile Launcher is one of the best choice for the Guardians. It has the best Missile Launcher blast in the game with Ap4 and Pinning and it also gives them an anti-tank weapon aswell. But with BS 3 you does miss. I personally like the Embolden power on the Warlock because it gives you a reroll on failed Leadership Test. Others love the Concel because it gives them a moving 5+ Cover Save at all times. This unit is best used for sitting on objectives or for supporting other units to help with shooting or softening up a unit before a charge from another squad.

Example of a Storm Guardian Squad:
10 Guardian
2 Flamers
Warlock with Enhance

The Flamers are good because they don't have a chance to miss because of the BS 3 so a bonus there. Enhance is good on these guys because it raises their WS and Int by 1 giving them a buff in Close Combat. Storm Guardians are best used to help support a close combat unit like Striking Scorpions or Howling Banshees with a charge.

Another Guardian unit I forgot to talk about in the beginning are Guardian Jetbikes. They are Basic Guardians on Jetbikes giving them T 4 and a 3+ save. They get a twin linked Shuriken Catapult and for every three Guardian Jetbikes you can trade a TL Catapult for a Shuriken Cannon a 24" S 6 Ap 5 Assault 3 weapon. This squad can get a Warlock aswell.

The best build for Guardian Jetbike:
6 man Jetbike
2 Shuriken Cannons
Warlock with Concel

This unit is best used to shoot up light tanks, weak troops, and heavy weapon squads. They are good for a last turn objective grab or contest.

I will talk about Rangers now.

Rangers have the same stat line as Guardians other than they have BS 4. They also have a Ranger Long Rifle and a Shuriken Pistol. They have the Infiltrate, Move Through Cover, and Stealth. They can be upgraded to Pathfinders which gives them Scout, Stealth is upgraded to +2 to cover saves and they ignore difficult terrain. Ranger Long Rifles are the basic Sniper weapon but on a roll of a 6 it becomes AP 1 and after you upgrade the Rangers to Pathfinders on a roll of 5 or 6 it becomes AP 1.

Best build for Rangers:
10 Rangers
Pathfinder

This unit is best used for sit on a objective or to Infiltrate up as far on the table to pick at heavy weapon units and MC. When in normal terrain they will have a +2 cover save making them hard to remove but do watch for Flamers because a normal Flamer weapon will eat them alive, bring them back to life, and kill them again. Also they will not do well at all in close combat like most of the shooty Eldar units. They are some of the best Snipers in the game and will do well at what they do.

Good read. Do you plan on posting your thoughts on tactics as well? I found it interesting that I run two Dire Avenger squads-one of each build that you describe-and use them for the same roles that you listed. I think that many of us(okay, maybe just me ) would be interested to read about Guardian tactics. On another blog somewhere(long, long ago) I read a tactica where they were described as being a "glue" unit. The argument that the author made was that Guardians are under appreciated because people try to use them in a direct, primary roll. (They try to have them do things on their own) The argument followed that Guardians are best used to act in a supporting roll to bridge the gap between specialist units when attacking or defending. The Guardians are rarely targeted by many opponents because of the threat of the more dangerous specialist units(Fire Dragons, Banshees, etc). Any thoughts?

My two cents on Storm Guardians- A great and cheap squad that I've used to escort Yriel is the 10 man Guardian unit with 2XFlamers, Warlock with Destructor in a Wave Serpent. I tend to skip Enhance for Storm Guardians as an enhanced Guardian is sort of an oxymoron.

Oh, and I am eagerly awaiting a Ranger tactica as I love the models, but have never found a point-effective use for them in games.

Yea I didn't finish it to begin with because I was doing this at work and didn't get home until like an hour ago so I wasn't home for almost two days. I hope this helps and if you have any comments or info to add just post it here and I will add it to them.

1 acronym, DAVU. I think you should atleast put a small post in about that.

Also no fusion guns builds for Storm Guardians??? Really... its the only way to run them (other than tri-flamer, which isnt really that good in an MSU world)

Shadows Revenge wrote:

1 acronym, DAVU. I think you should atleast put a small post in about that.

Also no fusion guns builds for Storm Guardians??? Really... its the only way to run them (other than tri-flamer, which isnt really that good in an MSU world)

DAVU?

I didn't put anything about fusion guns because of the low BS of 3 its more of a random chance that it will help over being a tatics.

Dire Avenger Vehicle Upgrade.

Minimum DA squad in a Wave Seprpent or Falcom = scoring semi-invincible tank.

I actually rather like Storm Guardians with fusion weaponry - 2 shots at BS 3 is 66% chance to hit with one, hardly bad odds. That's like RJBs with a heat lance or a Raider with a lance or Warriors with a Blaster accuracy. They're also scoring and cheap.

I did put that Dire Avengers may take a Wave Seprent as a transport.

Yea you are right about the Fusion Guns. I have bad experiences with low BS models and important weapons like Fusion Guns.

So a build like this is good for that:

10 Storm Guardians
2 Fusion Guns
Warlock with Concel

Cailos wrote:

Yea you are right about the Fusion Guns. I have bad experiences with low BS models and important weapons like Fusion Guns.

So a build like this is good for that:

10 Storm Guardians
2 Fusion Guns
Warlock with Concel

As a long-time IG player, I cringe at relying on anything with BS3 hitting when I need it...I would add a Singing Spear to the Warlock of that unit build to give an extra AT shot. I tend to run the flamer variant of the above squad only as a mop-up unit. they never see the outside of a Wave Serpent until it is ABSOLUTELY certain that they are needed to toast the remnants of a squad and/or support another unit that can take down any survivors.