# Space Marines vs. Eldar - Help?



## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

One of my friends and I are new to 40k, he's doing eldar and I'm doing the Ultramarines 5th company. After borrowing his codex one day, I found out that the eldar have a rediculous amount of high powered attacks. Ex: "This tank has 3 heavy weapons on it with 3 blasts and 15 shooting attacks."

During one of our first practice battles (10 marines vs 10 dire avengers) I tried hiding in cover and shooting from a distance. It worked to an extent, but my marines ended taking more damage and not dealing nearly enough (especially considering my rolling that day was very bad.) We ended up tying a lot... which worried me. If his Avengers match my marines, what could I hope to do against his shootier units?? The only strength I had on him was my awe-inspiring 3+ armour save. 

I had a plan... How would a squad of 5 assualt termies with thunder hammers and storm shields do against banshees? I planned to put them into a landraider and blast through his units, because thunderhammers cause units that aren't destroyed (or that don't flee) in the next combat phase to have 1 initiative, possible allowing another text almost immediatly. 

Another tactic I had was to use cover saves to my advantage, to save my troops from his bright lances. Does hiding in cover actually work well? Or should I be more aggresive in attacking him? Eldar seem very troubling to battle against, especially since in a 500 point game, he has 1 or 2 mechs and several troops, leaving me with just 20 marines and a captain. While I should not underestimate my marines, I'm worried about the no-doubt outrageous attacks he will get on my troops. Any tips?


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## Sephyr (Jan 18, 2010)

Your marines have better armor saves against most of what he can toss at you than the cover save they get if you keep them hidden. Also, his brightlances are a greather threat to vehicles and not troops. 

Remember that Eldar have lousy armor and Toughness. You may want to invest in a few Havoc launchers for your rhinos. Drive, get out, rapid fire them to bits. 

At 500 points, he can't be able to afford too much mech. With your cheap rhinos you may actually get the advantage in mobility.


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## jasonfly (Feb 1, 2009)

At 500 points you wont have too much mech, and neither will he. IMO if you want to shhot him to bits get a MoTF with a conversion beamer to lay down heavy fire and either 1 tactical and 1 scout squad or 2 tactical squads. The bonus with the scouts is that since they are cheaper you could probably get a rhino or razorback for your tactical squad and still have a decent unit to hold your objective with. With 2 tacticals you should be able to take most of the damage with your 3+ saves. I would go for a ML in each squad and a flamer and a plasmagun so you can handle anything he throws at you. If you play an objective game that gives you 4 scoring units if you combat squad and the ability to take out his armour and then blast his troops apart.

Hope this helps k:


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

The new Space marines codex really bumped up the prices of things, the captain costing 100 points as it is. My captain costs 130 points, having a plasma pistol and a lightning claw (giving an extra pistol attack and having nice blasting power of its own, and re-rolling wounds.) My army is 2 tactical squads of 10, both squads with flamers and missiles. My army is 5 pts over price for a rhino... 

I don't think space marine tanks get havoc missiles, thats Chaos I believe. However, all my tanks are decked with storm bolters.

I was planning to stay back and blast his mechs with krak missiles from a distance, then close in after they're all gone.
The plan with the scouts sounds good though...having heavy bolter with hellfire shells rocks. I was planning to include my Whirlwind in the army later, but has anyone ever had issues with them who has played with (or against) them? 

As for a devastator squad, my squad has a missile launcher, 2 heavy bolters, and a plasma cannon, making their minimum range 36 inches. Staying versatile with a missile launcher (kills infantry and rocks vehicles) and plasma cannons with their strength 7 AP 2 blast (wounds all his models on 2+, no armour saves!)


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

He's planning on buying this set to use as his army:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1020036&prodId=prod1960000

I'll hopefully kill the mechs early on then deal with his infantry, beating the crap out of the guardians/avengers in the CC with my captain, with fire support from my marines.


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## XxDreMisterxX (Dec 23, 2009)

Funkadacious said:


> The new Space marines codex really bumped up the prices of things, the captain costing 100 points as it is. My captain costs 130 points, having a plasma pistol and a lightning claw (giving an extra pistol attack and having nice blasting power of its own, and re-rolling wounds.) My army is 2 tactical squads of 10, both squads with flamers and missiles. My army is 5 pts over price for a rhino...
> 
> I don't think space marine tanks get havoc missiles, thats Chaos I believe. However, all my tanks are decked with storm bolters.
> 
> ...


i thought units with only one lightning claw do not get the extra attack bonus for having two CC weapons? something in the BRB said that about PF and TH.


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

XxDreMisterxX said:


> i thought units with only one lightning claw do not get the extra attack bonus for having two CC weapons? something in the BRB said that about PF and TH.


You would be right, but I believe I still get the re-roll a wound bonus, yes?

Another question, my assualt marines are currently upgraded with:
Melta Bombs, 2 plasma pistols (one with the sergeant), 1 power-axe (sergeant) and a jump-pack chaplain would be attatched to the squad. Would I be spending too many points on them, being a 265 point combo? I think that adding the chaplain (his power weapon, extra attacks and re-rolling all misses for the squad) would really boost the squads damage potential, giving the squad 20 attacks after an assualt and re-rolling all missing attacks.


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

sternguard are the way to go for SM, no matter who you are up against, their ammunitions can be useful against. deveastators with lascannons and heavy bolters are nice for anti eldar. just try and field lots of heavy bolters, Str 5 AP 4 wont allow the puny elday any saves and with their sad T3, you will wound on 3+


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## Refyougee (Nov 24, 2008)

sounds like you need a dreadnought or two lol. or rhinos, to keep you safe from the banshees.

some sternguard are fun too, give 'em a heavy flamer and stick them in a rhino...that will solve your problems until your opponent starts fielding fire dragons who, thankfully, have a pretty short range if not in a serpent.

my other advice is to play slightly larger games. unit on unit combat really isn't representative of the fun you can have with a codex; synergy is kind of hard to achieve at such at low points value 

soon enough you'll also realize that the vanilla marines codex (generally) performs better when meched up.


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## Don_Keyballs (Jan 14, 2010)

mcmuffin said:


> sternguard are the way to go for SM, no matter who you are up against, their ammunitions can be useful against. deveastators with lascannons and heavy bolters are nice for anti eldar. just try and field lots of heavy bolters, Str 5 AP 4 wont allow the puny elday any saves and with their sad T3, you will wound on 3+


Actually... you would be wounding on a 2+ as 99% of eldar have toughness 3. Plus the ap 4 means only cover saves and envon saves to worry about.

As an Eldar and SM player, I like to think I know my weaknesses... and an Eldar weakness is definitely the lack of toughness and armor. It is really hard to out shoot an eldar army, but my best suggestion is really focus on target priority with your own shooting. 

Guardians and Dire Avengers have short range weapons at 12" and 18" respectively, so concentrate your fire on the guns that can take you out prior to then. 

A SM 3+ armor save and a 4+ cover save make it a real hard time to really take them down.

Eldar really work best when they have units that complement each other. If you take away the one, the other unit will fall easily.

I have been a bit all over the place with my retort... but just note that eldar aren't invincible, just can seem like it at times.

Good Hunting


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## jasonfly (Feb 1, 2009)

I'd highly recommend a whirwind, place it somewhere where your opponent cant see it and then they have to divert a lot of their army to taking out 1 tank while the rest of your army blasts them to pieces. After you take out the vehicles all you have to deal with a T3 spess elfs who are perfect targets for your bolters. A dread would also come in handy to lock enemy units in CC and whittle them down.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Beating Eldar can vary wildly between players - if the Eldar player knows what he's doing, and Mechs up and builds his list properly, I think Vanilla marines are always going to struggle. However if he doesn't know what he's doing, you'll have a very easy time winning, because Eldar do not tolerate slack play in the same was as other armies.

What you take will vary wildly based on what he takes. If he's got several Falcons/Prisms/Serpents then Dev squads with 4x Missile Launchers would serve you well, as would a Pred with Auto/Lascannon. If however he's got infantry that don't spend the entire game in transports, then a Whirlwind/Dakka Pred would be more useful.

The Battleforce certainly won't give you any problems - Guardians suck, Avengers only kill things when there's 10 of them, and a single war walker with 2 different weapons is going to do very little.


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

With 1000 points, I plan to include:

Captain with Lightningclaw and Plasma pistol- 130 pts

10 tactical marines with missile launcher and flamer- 170 pts

10 tactical marines with missile launcher and flamer- 170 pts

Rhino with stormbolter- 45 pts

5 devastators with 2 missile launchers and 2 heavy bolters and powerfist- 175 pts

Razorback with heavy bolter and storm bolter- 50 pts

Whirlwind with storm bolter- 95 pts

5 Sternguard Vets with power fist and combi-plasma- 155 pts

That loadout leaves me with 990 pts, giving me 10 points of upgrades to give out frivolously. I already have all these models, I just need to finish painting some of them.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I would personally scrape some points from somewhere and make the Devs 10 men strong, so you can combat squad with 2x Launchers in one and 2x Bolters in another. Apart from that it looks fine!


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

Has anybody got experience using landspeeder storms? I personally think that it'd be an awesome transport for scouts, being open-topped (allowing all scouts to shoot and assualt as soon as they dis-embarked.)
I planned to use one in my new 500 point plan as soon as my buddy finally gets to finishing his models (which sadly does not appear to be soon...)
I haven't read about anybody using them, are they not usefull for what they do?


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I use a Storm with a Multi Melta in my Scout army. The ideal use for them is as backup for a better assault unit - so when you win the combat then the enemy takes leadership on an additional -2. In my case the 5 Scouts with a Powerfist Sergeant from the Storm generally attacks the same target as Shrike, a Chaplain and 10 Assault Marines with a Power Fist sergeant. I'll generally win the combat by at least 3 anyway, so Leadership tests on -5, thanks very much! 

Just don't leave them isolated - they'll get shot down very quickly.


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

In my next game (500 pts, just beggining) I am going to include:

Captain with Lightningclaw and Plasma Pistol- 130 pts

10 Tactical Marines- 170 pts

5 Scouts with bolters and heavy bolter- 85 pts

Rhino with Stormbolter- 45 pts

Landspeeder Storm with Heavy Bolter- 50 pts

The plan: Slap the Tactical Marines in the rhino and place them on an objective (or other usefull position), and have the landspeeder storm give fire support to the marines and the captain with their hellfire shells. The captain will have to be foot-sloggin' his way across the battlefield, but I intend to get him stuck into CC with the enemy commander (or other weaker units). Other than that, the Missile launcher should take care of other vehicle opposition. If the marines get in trouble, I will use the rhino as a screen to allow the marines to fall back safely, while the rhino attacks with its stormbolter.


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## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

So, the Captain is just going to walk on his own across the board? Just one Missile and a failed Invul save will be the death of him. Always try to hide your HQ's in a squad if you can.

If we are still talking Eldar here, then you can expect your vehicle opposition to be a lot more dangerous than just about anything in that 500 pt list. 

In fact, I'd just be happy he wasn't throwing out some Wraithlords at the 500 point level. Talk about trouble for your list.

Actually, since we're planning ahead like this, could you say what kind of things the Eldar player tends to run at this point level?


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## Chumbalaya (May 17, 2010)

The Librarian should be your go to HQ choice in just about any marine army. Null Zone and the Hood for so cheap is awesome.

Elfdar can be fast and tricksy, but hit them hard enough and they go down fine. Missile Launchers and Autocannons are your friends for taking down his transports, while bolters and flamers kill off his wussy T3 infantry.


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## deathbringer (Feb 19, 2009)

I agree with chumbalaya I'd go with a librarian for my HQ, he is a bit of a tank for his points value.

Other than that seems solid,though I'd also give speical weapons to my tactical squads and personally I wouldnt go for the scouts and the storm. I'd go for a predator autocannon lascannon take down infantry and anything av.


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

including scouts instead of another 10 man squad of marines really frees me up for options, giving me 115 points to spend on something else.
I'll read more about the librarian, and maybe order one... force weapons rock ;D
115 points... as a transport for my scouts, would a razorback (heavy bolter twinlinked) or a land-speeder storm (with multi-melta) be good, or should I pick my whirlwind or get a dakka predator?


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Whirlwind. defo. 

Anyway when targeting certain uits choose the larger ranged ones first. The number of times my eldar dark reapers are overlooked over the big target (the shiny near indestructible falcon that harbours fire dragons) and then the exarch kills about those 8 assault marines or tose 7 devastators before the rest fire then my opponent has lost his major attack force for dealing with them leaves them free to shoot.

Concerning librarians. They do not always work since some players (like me) prefer to be very unorthodox and not bring a farseer just so a autarch or phoenix lord can laugh his head off before chopping his head off (I use a fuegan).


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

That's why you have a captain ready to go as a back-up plan if he isn't being used.
Captain vs Librarian:

Captain has: 1 more wound, 1 more BS, 1 more WS, 1 more I, and 1 more attack than a librarian has. Wargear: Iron Halo (4+ invuln Save), Frag/Krak 'nades, chainsword/bolt pistol.

Librarian has: 2 free powers, Wargear: Psychic Hood (Negate Psychic Powers) Free Force Weapon (Power Weapon with possibility of instant death), Frag/Krak 'nades, bolt pistol.

Both are 100 points, without any upgrades, and come as shown above.
I would've chosen the captain, but what do you guys think, and why?


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

For Eldar players, the Farseer functions as the brain of the army, sending instructions to the muscles and helping it to apply the correct amount of force to objects in its way (your units).

How would you like to fight someone whose brain only functions correctly half the time? That's what your Librarian does. That's why you should take him.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Yeah would agree with that. Only nutcase players like myself like to trick every marine player and not use the farseer they have prepared for. Fuegan has the last laugh. Always.


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## Farseer_Iowan (Jun 25, 2010)

As a new Eldar player myself, let me just give you this old adage "just because it looks good on paper..." The Eldar read like they would be excellent in any situation, the thing is they are a very finesse army due to the highly specialized nature of the aspects. SM are so much more flexible. As you start playing at higher point levels you will see how his aspect warriors will drop like flys and your marines will still be standing...


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

A good Eldar plan will be more complex than other armies. They also often rely on one particular unit to do its job so they do not adjust well on the fly. Take out one specific unit and they will suffer.


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## Ravingbantha (Jan 9, 2009)

A space marine is good in combat and good in shoting, any particlar Eldar trooper will be goood in one. Figuring out your army will take time, minor tweeks will be made over and over again. The truth is you need to change things up, in my old group I used to wax the floor with everyone I played, because they we all so predictable. One guy always fielded a trooper army, another guy always armor and so on. Try different things out, this way your opponenet will not be able to customize his army to beat yours.

Personally I never liked putting a HW in a tactical squad, tactical marines are for movement and redeployment. A HW is useless for being on the move.


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## Imperium's finest (Jan 5, 2010)

Get some bikers to surround his force and keep locked down so you can tighten a nouse around him,the Eldar are the most manouverable race around,so strip that of them and there toughness and armour saves arn't going to be and use when they start to get ripped up by massed boltor fire.
You could try it with land speeders equipped with assult cannons as well as they could damage the lightly armoured vehicles and infantry alike whilst being very quick as well.


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## Shortseer (Sep 3, 2009)

I feel guilty telling you this as an eldar player, but here goes. An eldar player's shooty units will out shoot a marine. An eldar players assault units will out fight a marine. The trick to beating them is to shoot their assault units and assault (or use flamers on) their shooty units. This all seems simple, but the eldar are the most mobile army in the game this side of Dark Eldar. So take out or imobilize his vehicles early with long range fire power then pick your fights wisley and you have him. 

Oh and for the love of god take a librarian, use the hood (and not the other powers as a good eldar player will always have warding). And dont get charged by Banshees.

And try to get your victories in before your oponent learns/reads about the seer council or scatter laser spam.

peace


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## atatjacob1 (Jul 9, 2010)

hi, i go up against Eldar quite a bit myself actually. i can take out his wraithlord with one man(takes a lot of turns though!)! Best to use suppresing fire from units such as sternguard and tactical marines and then counter assault the weakened forces with dreads, assault marines or vanguards!


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