Tactics against Eldar

Hi guys~

Been a lurker for a while and decided to use you all for some tactic advice.
As I am a very new player, I have a very limited selection of units which are as follows:
Warriors: 20, Wytches: 10, Scourges: 10, Reavers: 3, Venom: 1, Raider: 1, Razorwing Jetfighter: 1, Lellith: 1, Archon: 1.
That's what Ive got to work with. The upgrades I chose at random (before readin your guides and the rulebook) puts me at around 1500pts.

On this upcomming sunday Im gonna fight a Eldar. Like it says in the description, this is my second game ever (lost horribly to the Deamons in my first game last Sunday).

I have no idea on what units he will use, but as he is a very experienced player, I don't expect to beat him, but at least I want to make him go: "OH MY GOD I HATE YOU YOU LITTLE PIECE OF *garbage* at some point during the game.

Any suggestions? I understand the DE play with no honor, and thats cool... let's do that... let's do that aaaall the way.
I'm just asking for simple input here, something among the lines of: "Well, the Eldar usally like to use [this and that], and if you use [this and that] they can [this and that] and that'll [this and thatt] and will make youre opponent cry. You know, playing in the DE fashion

Quote :

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Hi there! Welcome to the Dark City!

Firstly a quick note on your list...I'd strongly suggest the next few purchases you make are more transports for your troops. DE don't really work as a footslogging army so we all need to be mobile and pile into our transports. After that I'd get a Ravager or two for your AT. This'll make your army ALOT stronger believe me. Look at the army lists on this site and you'll see everything in transports.

As for fighting Eldar. It depends on your meta and what the guy likes playing. I imagine his list will be quite shooty though. Eldar pathfinders and rangers are solid sniping troop choices but don't have large fire output. They can be murdered in CC. Ever your 3 reavers could take out a squad when they charge. There are really many different things an Eldar player can take so this is hard.

If he takes a Wraithlord - Splinter is your best friend. You'll laugh as he goes down.
Farseers can be very annoying but will fall to Lelith or your Archon so if you can, get them into combat.
Guardian Jetbikes will fall to Splinter Fire.
If he takes Scorpions or Banshees you should shoot them. Although he'll more likely take Harlequins which are flippin' nasty so stay out of their charge range
If he takes Wraithguard, either stay out of range as their guns are only 12" or tarpit them wyches. They'll be nicely tied up in assault for a long while.
War-walkers should be high on your target priority. They chuck out loads of S6 firepower. Horrible against our armour.

That's it for the top of my head. Write up your army list and we can offer some advice on your upgrades and such.

Agree with Mug completely, think I've seen you at Warlords Mug? Do you have the lovely lightning bolt Raiders? Anyway, I think you are gonna have a relatively tough time without mobility for your units, would recommend consolidating into larger squads if you have to be on the table outside transports to give a bit more survivability. If I were you I would use these first few games to make sure you are really tight with the rules and remembering all the basics. This way you can gradually build up your skills in terms of strategic play and tactics. There are a lot of subtle nuances to the game, especially in 6th, which can only really be picked up on fully once you have the fundamentals strongly ingrained in your mind. For example, I have really seen the benefit of taking a full 5 Trueborn in my Darklance teams, as this allows me to create a triangle of 'bods' around the two guys with the important weapons, meaning they are always the closest models,regardless of the angle of incoming fire. This means potentially another unit having to fire at the TB in order to kill off the first Darklance. Swapping the 3 'bods' rifles for CC weapons and pistols has also meant this unit has around the same number of attacks as a 10 strong Warrior squad. It can be small differences such as these that can make a big difference. Don't be afraid to ask your opponent if he would be willing to allow you to proxy, you're a new player and anyone who objects to this in a casual gaming setting is probably not someone you should be playing at this stage in your 40k 'career'!

My first comment is a simple one;

I understand that you have an army of 1500 points.
However, looking at what you own, what you really have is an army of 1000 points, maybe 1250, that you are playing at 1500 points and thus giving a huge advantage to anyone you fight who actually has a legit 1500 point force.

My first and easiest advice to hurt an Eldar player would be to request a 1000 point game - DE scale to 1000 *far* better than Eldar can.

After that, your situation is more of a question mark without knowing what you intend to bring and what he intends to bring. Eldar and DE are both primarily manuverability armies, and he'll likely have the edge on you in manuverability if he has a half decent collection. My advice is to bring tools to pop his vehicles (our lances and darklight weaponry are actually some of the best anti-Eldar vehicle tech out there) Pop the vehicles asap, because you want to slow him down.

Once he's slowed down then your slow army will be in a good situation because DE are basically better at everything else than Eldar are currently. Wraith units are a joke to us because we have poison. Our combat characters are superior to their combat characters, and against Eldar Lelith is truly a force to be reckoned with. Even our line troopers have an edge on theirs. I would make a second top focus any Farseer/Eldrad unit he fields, Farseers/Eldrad are force multipliers and make the entire Eldar army better - indeed, it may be a better kill than the vehicles...thankfully usually they'll use different weapons to kill off.

Beyond that it really depends on what he brings and what you intend to bring.
I would advocate pushing for a smaller point game.
I would also advocate the Aegis line if you are bringing a bigger and mostly infantry army.

Thor665 wrote:

My first comment is a simple one;

I understand that you have an army of 1500 points.
However, looking at what you own, what you really have is an army of 1000 points, maybe 1250, that you are playing at 1500 points and thus giving a huge advantage to anyone you fight who actually has a legit 1500 point force.

This. When I finished reading your post, I wanted to write that. But saw that Thor already did. You really don't have a 1500 points army. IMHO there's no way you can put the hurt to that Eldar player without lowering the game to a 1000 pts game and maybe ask your opponent (if he's a friend who just wants a fun game) to bring a list that's not going to kick your butt so hard.

When this happens you should be able to have a fun game. If you really want to put the hurt to people, well... There' ll be some purchases you' ll have to make, alas.

I'll third the suggestion of playing at lower than 1,500. 1,000 points looks ideal.

I'd divide up your Wyches. 6 of them in the Raider and 4 of them being called Bloodbrides in the Venom. Go ahead and kit out squad sargs for both units with extra killy weapons. They get dibs on the transports 'cause they need to go somewhere.

Shell out for haywire grenades, since they're amazing and let your girls hunt vehicles too. The Raider squad should be looking to take an objective from the enemy, the venom should be looking to deal damage.

Put whichever of your two HQs is more killy in the venom. Grab haywire grenades or a blaster for the Archon.

I'd bust the warriors into 2 squads of 10. Each armed with a Splinter cannon. This is so you can shoot at the unit you intend to assault. In fact, that's a huge trick this army does very, very well. Shoot 'em before you assault 'em. Try to pick assaults on or near cover.

Then, Dark Lance wielding Scourges. They're about the 3rd best price for dark lances, but in this case you don't have the best two units sooo... why not?

I can actually suggest Dark Lance Scourges and have it be good advice for once!

Wow, thanks for the feedback guys.

mug's list on what to use where will be really handy and this Eldar guy refuse to tell me what he'll be using.

Now to the issue of my points, there's a lot I don't completely understand here.
Lets run through what I have:
Kabalite Warriors: Sybarite, Blast Pisol, Agoniser. - Shredder - Splinter Cannon, Dark Lance.
Wytches: Haywire grenades, Razorflails, Shardnet and Impaler.
Scourges: Haywire Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Blaster, Dark Lance, Solarite - Blast Pistol and Agoniser.
Reavers: Blaster, Cluster Caltrops
Venom: Splinter Cannon - Night Shields
Raider: Night Shields, Flickerfileld
Lelith: -
Archon: Venom Blade, Combat Drugs, Soultrap, Shadow Field
Razorwing Jetfighter: Splinter Cannon, Necrotoxin Missiles, Night shields, Flickerfield.

Please do note that a lot of the "visible" upgrades (like agoniser etc) has only been chosen because I glued it on cuz it looked good. After I read the guides on this page, the rulebook and not at least the codex I had to cut off 17 arms in my army just to make it "legal" (i.e not carrying a blaster and an Impaler on 1 chracter). Oh the curses of incompetence and childs dreams hehe

Anyway, I don't see how I can make this into a 1000 point army without cutting off even more arms or removing units completly. If this is needed, what do I remove? Also, (I might be wrong in this), it seems like its "normal" to choose what weapon the units have from game to game, even if the actual weapon on the unit is something else? I have been told that "what you see is what you get"?

From my last game I found my wytches in Rider/w Lelith dropped off at the front lines did some incredible damage (lelith just refused to die). Also the Necrotoxin missiels did wonders.

PS: Sorry Mr. Mod, I completely forgot that rule, won't happen again.

It's relatively normal for people to "proxy" or to play with wargear that isn't what's on the model in friendly games. Just be able to tell who is who & what dude has the special weapon.

In a serious tournament setting, then yes, you should probably be wysiwyg (have the proper gear glued on). Almost anywhere else, it doesn't matter much and is more a mark of personal pride than anything else.

Well, just got home from the game and I was torn to a thousand pieces.

Played 2 games, first with the full ~1500 point setup and then a 1200 point game.
There wasnt really much difference. In the second round he had a hard time to kill my Razorwing because he removed his AA.

For my part it seemed like the squad of 3 walkers was the ones that killed it for me. With 30+ dice, 2+ to hit and blessings that gave rerolls on all fail to hits were devastating for my infantry.

He is a nice guy and all, but he didn't treat me nicely just because Im new. Tough love I guess. Lots to learn.

Soundslave wrote:

For my part it seemed like the squad of 3 walkers was the ones that killed it for me. With 30+ dice, 2+ to hit and blessings that gave rerolls on all fail to hits were devastating for my infantry.

War Walkers can be very hard for us if they get to shoot but they only have BS3 so not sure how he was getting 2+ to hit?

Sorry, I had no idea why I said 2+, it's 4+ with rerolls. This equals something like BS4,5 which is still very leathal. Also its 24 dice for a squad of 3 walkers, not 30. My bad~