Howdy,
A quick army guide for running Eldar at the end of 5th edition, when they are at their worst…if you really want to have a chance, you have to give up all notion of playing normally.
Instead, you need to focus only on bringing the best anti-tank units you can.
Obviously, Fire Dragons are one of those units.
The other are your Wave Serpents.
Leaving out the pointless rules discussions on whether you can use cover saves or reduce the strength of hits when you ram…you’ll see the list is constructed without regard to such.
2000 Pts – Eldar Roster
1 Farseer, 88 pts ( Fortune ; Singing Spear)
1 Warlock Unit, 232 pts
1 Warlock (Singing Spear)
1 Warlock (Singing Spear)
1 Warlock (Singing Spear)
1 Warlock (Singing Spear)
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Fire Dragons, 200 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Fire Dragons, 200 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Fire Dragons, 200 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers, 180 pts
1 Wave Serpent (Vectored Engines; TL Shuriken Cannons)
Total Roster Cost: 2000
Notes: In the end, you have to realize just how underpowered Eldar are–they are specialists in a world where 5 meltaguns is overkill and 0 meltaguns is fatal.
The only way to make up for this lack is to do what Eldar do best–run around gaining cover saves and limiting incoming damage on the front and sides of the tank.
Form a wall of steel, and inflict S10 hits wherever you can–weakest models first. Like Land Speeders, then Rhinos, and if everything is disembarked wait till the smoke clears to engage any heavy units like land raiders. If you get immobilized, well it sucks but your vehicles nor your units inside die, so ram away. After turn 1, sacrifice your fire dragons to destroy as many vehicles as possible–while zapping 1 Rhino might seem ‘good’, spreading the meltabomb love across multiple slow-moving, penned in, and/or immobilized vehicles is usually better.
Don’t forget to push enemy units out of cover with your vehicles so your fire dragons and dire avengers have the best chance possible to inflict damage before they get shot to pieces.
can we get a roflmao? Cuz that’s what I’m doin’
And once you pop all your opponent’s transports with all those lovely S10 cover-ignoring auto-hits you… do what exactly to his infantry? Let’s all remember that killing tanks is only a means to an end, and that end is killing the infantry hiding inside those tanks; because it’s those infantry that are Scoring in Objective missions and giving up relatively easy KP in KP games.
Yes, Eldar are at their worst these days. Yes, you can’t play them “normally”, but if “normally” is defined as “like Space Marines” then the fact is that Eldar have never been suitable to playing that way. Eldar are going to win or lose in the Movement Phase, not with shooting and certainly not with assault, but that does not mean you can get away with an army with negligible firepower. Ramming (and tank shocking, and blocking) are extremely useful tools in the Eldar toolbox, but ramming to the exclusion of all else is not a path to success.
I was hoping for some of your usual valuable insight, Stelek, but I’ve come to believe now that you are so disillusioned with Eldar that you no longer care enough to take discussing them seriously. Wraithlords? Pure ramming builds that can’t kill infantry? Come on, Stelek, you can do so much better than that; but you’re obviously choosing not too, which is disappointing.
Every time I see a list from this shitty codex, I get one step closer to selling my entire Eldar collection in spite of GW.
charlie: Chaos died a long time ago. What does that mean for this build?
If you don’t know the answer, just say you don’t.
Then I’ll tell you why you don’t “get it”.
it still has mass dakka to kill infantry, i dont know what the problem is.
It also has 10 tank shocks per turn to deal with any infantry too tough to shoot to death (massed 2+ saves, stuff with FNP, Paladins and other such Deathstars).
Well, squ1rrel and powerguy figured out the obvious.
Thing is, without fearless + rhinos (aka Chaos only) you can’t be reliably countered.
Everything else you can shock off or shoot off, usually both.
My Tau *hate* this army. If more Eldar players were aggressive, I would lose games with my Tau virtually instantly.
My Eldar-Fu is weak, what do the vectored engines do again?
If you get immobilized you land.
Helpful when you intend to ram things.
Stelek, I can only assume you’re making some sort of obscure reference to Fearless troops being uncommon these days, and that you don’t need to kill infantry when you can just tank shock them.
Wrong. Tank shock is another one of those useful tools available to Eldar, but it’s not the be-all and end-all, and it’s certainly not enough on its own to justify building such a woefully unbalanced list as this one. There are four reasons why relying purely on tank shock is a poor approach:
Firstly, while tank shocking onto Objectives is great in those missions, hoping you can run some squads off the board for a few extra KP is not a recipe for success in KP missions.
Secondly, tank shocking onto Objectives is a hell of lot less effective when you get given the first turn.
Thirdly, have fun tank shocking a chainfist or meltabomb. Your zoom save and energy fields aren’t doing anything for you now, so good luck with that. Shock enough regular meltaguns and you’re going to die too.
Fourthly, while Chaos may be uncommon these days, they’re not extinct, and they’re not the only source of Fearless troops. Run this list against Chaos, Daemons, Orks, Nids, GK Purifiers, Deathwing… you’re fucked. Losing to Daemons, Orks or Nids would be particularly embarrassing.
Sorry Stelek, you’ve seriously dropped the ball on this one. Ramming and tank shocking are great, but you can build an Eldar list capable of using those tactics where appropriate without sacrificing all its other potential capabilities. I’m sad to say I’ve lost faith in you when it comes to Eldar; it’s very obvious that you don’t play them anymore, at least not competitively, and I for one will not be taking any more bad advice from you on this particular subject.
Sigh. Are you just retarded, or what?
1) Nobody cares about kill points.
2) Who was advocating tank shocking onto objectives? Note: tank shocking onto objectives when going first is just as effective when you can’t be melta’d, cannot die to immobilization, cannot be shocked off, and carry troops.
3) I think you need to read the rules again.
4) The elite armies I don’t need to shock but can just shoot to death with my 60 S6 shots a turn? Allright, I accept.
Your apology is accepted. I’m sad to say you need to play 40k more.