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Hello everyone,

I’ll try to keep this brief as possible. I’ve been playing 40k for a little while, and for the majority of my “40k career” I have played Daemons.
And thanks to the demands of plastic crack, and a disposition to trade armies far too often – I now, no longer own any Daemons (I may have a problem, however that’s a whole other thread).

I now own an Eldar army, which in a week or two will be fully painted (yaaaay).
My question is simple, without buying new things (please don’t tempt my weak willed brain), does anyone have any advice on using the below units in standard games.

My Meta consists of SM (Iron Hands, Imperial Fists and Space Wolves), Tau, Necrons and Orkz. I encounter a few flyers in the guise of Scythes and some SM flyers.

I’m a bit of a stickler for my own forces to be WYSIWYG, so I’m trying to stick with what the units are built like.

I’d appreciate any and all feedback from you guys. Never fear, I’m not asking you to list build for me, I’m more than willing to try out my pointy eared friends, but I’d like any tips/pointers you may have on using the units I have in the builds they are in.

Thanks


HQ – Eldrad
HQ – Farseer with Singing Spear
No Force Org – 3 x Warlocks (2 with blades, 1 with Spear)

Elite – 6 x Fire Dragons and 1 Exarch (Exarch has Firepike)

Troops – 10 x Dire Avengers (including Exarch with Dire Sword and Pistol)
Troops – 10 x Dire Avengers (Including Exarch with Twin linked Catapult)
Troops - 10 x Guardian Defenders and a Bright Lance Platform

Dedicated Transport – 2 x Wave Serpents (Built with Bright Lances and Hull mounted catapults)

Fast Attack – 3 x Vyper Jetbikes with Shuriken Cannons and Catapults
Fast Attack – 6 x Warp Spiders

Heavy Support – 2 x Falcons (Built with Brightlances and Hull Mounted catapults)
Heavy Support – Fire Prism (Hull mounted catapults)


I think, just as WYSIWYG it totals at 1891 points. That’s before I add any shenanigans on my vehicles, I’ve heard people use Holo-fields and Star engines quite a bit? I also know the optimum build for Serpents is with the scatter lasers, but as mine are built with bright lances, I’m gonna try my luck with them.

My very vague plan is to stay mobile as I can, as opposed to the firebase approach. The only “slow units” I think I have are the guardians and the dragons. The rest of the army can move about in the transports etc.

From reading other threads I’ve seen that my best bet with anti air would be my warp spiders? I’ve seen other people just use serpents with lasers as AA, but as I don’t have that option, I’m unsure where my AA will come from.

Thank you for reading, and thanks for any help

Well, this is actually a good starting point.
Staying mobile is key since speed is their armor.

Thank you for your response.
Awesome . Would I be best with the Dire Avengers in the Serpents do you think?
Perhaps keep the Guardians on backfield objectives? I'm just a bit conscious of footslogging T3 models

Fire Dragons need a Wave Serpent.

Wave Serpent protects the Fragons. They get out. They blow up a Land Raider. They get slaughtered by the SM hiding inside.

So, 1 wave serpent with fire dragons and 1 with dire avengers?
Guardians and the other DA keep backfield?

Those pesky marines *shakes fist*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or could I put the Fragons in a Falcon perhaps?

You'd have to drop one Fragon to fit them in the Falcon, but that could work.

Huzzah!!
I shall try that, thank you.
Apart from Weapons, what equipment do you guys tend to give your tanks? Holo fields? Star engines? Spirit stones?

Well, the guardians could stay in the backfield babysitting a heavy weapon.
I usually mount them in a Serpent and use their shurikats, at best guided.
You could mount the Fire Dragons and 5 DA into the Falcons.
It's not the best tank in town. Maybe you could declare them as being Serpents.

Good call.
I'm a bit weird with proxies. No problem with people doing it but I like to use them as is.

I think I'll try the dire avengers in the Serpents. Perhaps put a Farseer and Warlock in one and 2 warlocks in another. I'll check the codex for the ruling there. I think I can split them up and attach them to units? Presume I can attach 2 warlocks to one unit.

Keep Eldrad back field with the Guardians.

And then just zip around the table with the vypers, grav tanks and spiders.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
*oh and put the Fire Dragons in one of the falcons (unit of 6) and keep the other empty

Eldrad is wasted in the backfield.
He's better used in a foot slogging unit moving through the center. Wraithguard would be good for this.
Warlocks cannot be attached to aspect units.

D'oh, foiled again.

I need to study the codex more/harder.

Footslogging wise, I could put him with a unit of DAs and footslog those. Then have 1 serpent with DAs and 1 with Fire Dragons (so keeping the Falcons empty). Perhaps trying the farseer/warlocks in a Falcon?

Random question, any experience with Harlequins? I think they look kinda cool

In my experience they look cool and their Psychic power is good when it works against opponents who don't know about it but they're not worth the investment. Which is a shame because I love them.

Thanks for the reply .
I know I should have a good few test games with what I've got before I look at other additions.
I can't help buy feel I'm lacking anti-air with my lists. I suppose if I stay mobile enough and stick to the mission, it shouldn't matter too much in my meta.
TAC wise, am I right in thinking I have a semi decent choice for lists? Tend to play 1500-1850 pts

Well, Harlies were quite good in former editions.
But it seems nobody is running them atm.
Several reasons: mech, game is more shooty than cc, one hit wonder.

I hear that. With my daemons CC wasn't too much of an issue due to toughness and the resilience of Nurgle Daemons. But with Eldar, I can't see them being as long lasting in combat. My understanding is just move and shoot, shoot and move, don't hang around

 NurglesTurtle wrote:
I hear that. With my daemons CC wasn't too much of an issue due to toughness and the resilience of Nurgle Daemons. But with Eldar, I can't see them being as long lasting in combat. My understanding is just move and shoot, shoot and move, don't hang around

Exactly.

With my Serpents I usually move close the gap to the enemy quickly, stay at distance below 24", shoot all weapons, and move only gradually.

Glad I'm on the right train of thought, thanks.

I'm really looking forward to having a shooting phase again ha.

Im going to try and resist my anti-air craving and not buy a Crimson Hunter or adl

Moar wave serpents.

But, but, painting boooooo, hisssss, boooooo.
Plus I'm not painting them purple .

Drop the Fragon exarch and just run five stock in a Falcon. If you can't kill something with five meltas it's not going to die.

Run the Dire Avengers in Wave serpents and the Guardians in the backfield with a Warlock babysitter. (I can't remember if they're BS 5 in this edition but if they are you can use them to shoot the bright lance).

Maybe put Eldrad and your Farseer in an Avengers squad each and just try to hop out earlyish to get some use out of them. I don't know, it's been a while since I've ran a psyker not on a jet bike.

Put holofields on your tanks, anything else isn't super necessary. Ghostwalk matrix maybe but only if you have the points.

I know you said not to tell you what to buy, but if and when you're ready to start getting stuff, look for used heavy weapon sprues and try to kit out your vehicles a bit more optimally. Scatter lasers on the serpents, shuriken cannons instead of their catapults. Put scatter lasers and cannons on all your vipers. Use vipers to hunt light armour and serpents to go after air. Falcons can stay as they are and hunt heavy armour.

Harlequins are a cool unit but hurt from Eldar having no assault vehicles. Go Unbound and try some venom shenanigans? I haven't tried it myself but it could be fun.

Bubz, huge thanks for your input .
That all sounds like a great way to try them out, I will .
Warlocks are BS4 in this edition I believe. I think my first matchup using my Eldar will be against SW. I know he's dying to try out his bastion and a few new dreads, so it's sounding like my mobility and firepower may come in handy

Thanks for posting this challenge. It goes against the doctrine I use for my lists - no scatterlasers, for example. It makes me think outside of my box. So these are the difficulties I forsee for your army:

You have a relatively mobile force - Wave Serpents and Falcons, but that limits your Psychic potential, because everyone is in a transport. You could try to march down the field, but you don't have very resilient units (my INF tend to evaporate once they venture out of their transports).
The second "problem" is that I see is that you have lower output/longer range transports - Wave Serpents and Falcons with Lances, stuffed with short range INF. That means you're going to be rushing in with hard hitting units that can't put out that many wounds.
As for AA, most Eldar players seem to trust their twin-linked Wave Serpents, but since yours are loaded with Lances you wouldn't get that. That may be a problem if you come up against Stormravens/wolves or ever face Heldrakes.

To my mind, you're lacking fast supporting units. You have spiders, which are great and (while I don't generally use them) your vypers are probably a good option. I think you need bikes. Lots of bikes. Especially with the Maelstrom Missions, it's very helpful to have units that can be anywhere on the board in a turn. The fact that they're cheap is even better.

As for how ~I~ would play what you have:
I would load 10 DA in a Wave Serpent, and split the other 10 into 5 man teams loaded in the Falcons. I wouldn't add an exarch to any of them. I'd load the Fire Dragons into the other WS. I'd run the Falcons and the Prism around the back field/flanks to take objectives and shoot from range. I'd use the Spiders and the Vypers to work as needed since they're both really mobile and have higher S guns. Let Eldrad and a Warlock sit in the middle (preferably in cover) to shoot and buff as much as possible. The Farseer could go in either Wave Serpent, I guess. The other Warlocks are sort of out of luck unless you want to try a mini-council and have them cower out of LOS and try to buff from cover.

Thanks for your response Mars .
Interesting points, and I appreciate your raising to the challenge with your good advice.
Yeah, when I got them I had no idea about Eldar weaponry (only faced them once in 6th) so didn't know what the tanks were built with, after reading through the codex, I realised they were built with the least optimal guns. Dont get me wrong Bright lances seem to have great output damage wise, but not so many shots etc. I'm relying on always hitting, and my rolling is never lucky.
I like the sound of optimising the transport capacity of both the Falcons too. Having never really run an armour heavy army, it will be an interesting learning curve.

I must say that the rule of cool kinda wins with them at the moment, the tanks look great. So even if they let me down a few times at first, they look to good to stay mad at....for long

HQ – Eldrad - Put this with a DA squad
HQ – Farseer with Singing Spear - Put this with a DA squad
No Force Org – 3 x Warlocks (2 with blades, 1 with Spear) - Either put 1 with the Guardians (as that's all they can join) or run a tiny Seer Council with 1 or both the HQs

Elite – 6 x Fire Dragons and 1 Exarch (Exarch has Firepike) - Drop to 6 models and go in the Falcon. If so, add Star Engines and the Targetting Thingy for a fast dash up-field before dropping off the next turn

Troops – 10 x Dire Avengers (including Exarch with Dire Sword and Pistol) - Take Disarm and other powers to challenge mid-range bosses
Troops – 10 x Dire Avengers (Including Exarch with Twin linked Catapult) - Support the other DA squad, or split into 2 5-man squads
Troops - 10 x Guardian Defenders and a Bright Lance Platform - Hold the closest objective

Dedicated Transport – 2 x Wave Serpents (Built with Bright Lances and Hull mounted catapults) - Transport the DA squads. Take Holofield and use Jink until ready to drop troops

Fast Attack – 3 x Vyper Jetbikes with Shuriken Cannons and Catapults - Expensive, but good against high-T targets
Fast Attack – 6 x Warp Spiders - Bounce up the table with the transports and take out light vehicles. Very useful

Heavy Support – 2 x Falcons (Built with Brightlances and Hull Mounted catapults) - Either take Ghostwalk Matrix to sit in cover, or carry FD and small DA squad
Heavy Support – Fire Prism (Hull mounted catapults) - Ghostwalk for better cover?

Use Psyker powers to help against fliers. WS turrets are twin-linked, though.
Remember that your hulls are AV12, and cannot be hurt by anything less than S6. Apart from from behind, so keep pointing inwards.

Skinnereal, huge thanks for the advice . What you've said is basically where I'm at now, so I'm glad to see I'm on the right page.
Arranged a game yesterday with my SW opponent. Luckily he won't bring flyers. His usual "fluffy" list is Njal, Bjorn, 2 Ven dreads, Adl and quad, 2 x troops in rhinos/razorbacks, vindicator, imperial bastion, sw dev squad (longfangs?) and a pack of wolves.

I'm planning on using the mobility and firepower against him. The only quick unit he has are the wolves, so don't let them get close enough and then just stay mobile and shoot the rest of his army. He is forced to stay in his firebase, so unless he surprises me with his tactics it should be quite straight forward tactically, hopefully giving me a good chance to learn some army rules for eldar lol.

One thing I see missing there is shuriken cannons on the vehicles (notably the vypers and serpents) instead of catapults. If you could swap those out that would give you loads more firepower.

Hey guys, Another “Noob” question (apologies), was looking through the BRB (still only have 6th ed) and the codex last night. Am I right in thinking the below statements are true for the movement of my Eldar?





Infantry

(Eldrad, Farseer, Warlocks, Guardians, Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons)

· As they are normal infantry models they get the standard move distance of 6” in the movement phase. And then in the shooting phase, because they all have “Battle Focus” and “Fleet” they can either:-
- Shoot and then run D6 (the D6 is re-rollable thanks to “Fleet”)
OR
- Run D6 and then shoot (again the D6 is re-rollable thanks to the “Fleet” rule)

Meaning that any of these units can move their 6” in the Movement phase, then shoot at an enemy unit, and then attempt to run to cover after shooting. When using Battle Focus, I need to shoot and run/run and shoot that unit before moving on to another units shooting.

N.B – The Weapons Platform has the “Relentless” rule so can move and fire as normal.



Jet Pack Infantry

(Warp Spiders)

· In the movement phase they can either:-
- Jet Pack move 6”
OR
- Warp Jump, which is 6” + 2D6 (if roll a double, remove a model)

And then in the shooting phase, they can again Shoot and then Run OR Run and then Shoot (Battle Focus).

But, in the assault phase, they can “Thrust move” 2D6 anywhere OR if I did move them into assault, can take an Initiative test to “hit and run” 3D6.

N.B – I don’t ever plan on moving them into assault btw.



Fast Skimmers

(Vyper Squadron, Wave Serpents, Falcons and Fire Prism)

· Can move 6” “Combat Speed” (everything fires at full BS, vehicle weapons and passengers embarked; presuming fire points etc.)
OR
· 6” to 12” “Cruising Speed” (vehicle fires at full BS but passengers, if any, can only fire snap shots, again presuming fire points etc.)

If take the above options (Combat or Cruising), I can then shoot as normal (vehicle weapons) in the “Shooting Phase”.

OR

· Rather than shooting I can move “Flat Out” which is 18”. So if I move 12” in the movement phase and then move 18” (Flat Out) in the Shooting Phase, that gives all my Fast Skimmers a distance range of 30”

Thanks again guys


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Master of asgard - Good call. I'm keeping my eye on eBay for spare sprues

The only thing you might want to look at again is Cruising Speed.
Fast vehicles get to fire 2 weapons at full BS, and any others can only snap fire. If you had Scatter Lasers fitted, you could snap-fire the SL, then fire up to 2 others at bull BS, with re-rolls. A WS's SL would be TL anyway.
The points about Fire Points are redundant, as no Eldar vehicles have any. Good to keep in mind though, for planning enemy movements.
Yes, Flat Out is usually in place of shooting. IIRC, you don't get to make turns when going flat out, so be careful of waving your back end when you stop.
But, look at Star Engines and Targetting Array (?) for tactics like that.

Great .
Thought I had it more or less right, cheers.
Ah ok. So the Falcons. With the Pulse Laser, Catapults and Lances would fall under that issue. So could fire 2 as usual after cruising and then snap the 3rd then.
Does this effect the Serpents shields also? Or is that uneffected from that rule?

Thanks again


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also added the Crystal Targeting Matrix and Holo fields onto my vehicles after your advice too skinnereal, thank you

 NurglesTurtle wrote:
Infantry

(Eldrad, Farseer, Warlocks, Guardians, Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons)

· As they are normal infantry models they get the standard move distance of 6” in the movement phase. And then in the shooting phase, because they all have “Battle Focus” and “Fleet” they can either:-
- Shoot and then run D6 (the D6 is re-rollable thanks to “Fleet”)
OR
- Run D6 and then shoot (again the D6 is re-rollable thanks to the “Fleet” rule)

Meaning that any of these units can move their 6” in the Movement phase, then shoot at an enemy unit, and then attempt to run to cover after shooting. When using Battle Focus, I need to shoot and run/run and shoot that unit before moving on to another units shooting.

N.B – The Weapons Platform has the “Relentless” rule so can move and fire as normal.

This is all correct. Remember, that if firing a Heavy Weapon you cannot use Battle Focus, unless the model is Relentless (which as you pointed out, the HWP confers to the shooter).

Jet Pack Infantry

(Warp Spiders)

· In the movement phase they can either:-
- Jet Pack move 6”
OR
- Warp Jump, which is 6” + 2D6 (if roll a double, remove a model)

And then in the shooting phase, they can again Shoot and then Run OR Run and then Shoot (Battle Focus).

But, in the assault phase, they can “Thrust move” 2D6 anywhere OR if I did move them into assault, can take an Initiative test to “hit and run” 3D6.

N.B – I don’t ever plan on moving them into assault btw.

Correct. They cone move up to 36" in a turn.

Fast Skimmers

(Vyper Squadron, Wave Serpents, Falcons and Fire Prism)

· Can move 6” “Combat Speed” (everything fires at full BS, vehicle weapons and passengers embarked; presuming fire points etc.)
OR
· 6” to 12” “Cruising Speed” (vehicle fires at full BS but passengers, if any, can only fire snap shots, again presuming fire points etc.)

If take the above options (Combat or Cruising), I can then shoot as normal (vehicle weapons) in the “Shooting Phase”.

OR

· Rather than shooting I can move “Flat Out” which is 18”. So if I move 12” in the movement phase and then move 18” (Flat Out) in the Shooting Phase, that gives all my Fast Skimmers a distance range of 30”

Thanks again guys

Combat Speed - everything can fire at full BS
Cruising Speed - two weapons can fire at full BS. If firing the Shield, it counts as a weapon.

On a side note, Eldar vehicles do not have Fire Points.

Flat Out is correct. Also note that their is a piece of wargear that allows a vehicle to shoot after moving Flat Out.