# Eldar in Planetstrike



## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

Maybe I'm jumping the gun with this, but I figured the ball needed to start rolling someplace...

I've been looking over the Eldar codex with Planetstrike in mind. Offensively, I'm seeing the following:

Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders for surgical insertion (take out large blocks of lightly armored troops)
Fire Dragons by the score to take care of armor and buildings, plus any blocks of heavy infantry
Scorpions and banshees to take everything in-between

Which is all pretty standard. I'm just worried about how infiltrate will be reflected. That could make or break Scorpions as an option. Hawks and Spiders will each have their unique application, I think.

Defense-wise, it might be time to reevaluate support weapons. Since you know the enemy will be coming at you, something like a line of d-cannons could really aid in defense. War walkers also look to be a slightly better option than wraithlords, simply because they can be decked out with the same number of weapons, but are cheaper and therefore can be taken in greater number.

Any thoughts for those lucky enough to get their pre-orders yet? Gotta wait until the 25th in my area to get it...


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## Cocakoala (Apr 27, 2009)

Im likeing the thought on D-cannons as if they all deep strike there all huddled together and hopefully within range. It would murder anyone who doesnt already have the deepstrike rule.

However i always saw the eldar as not defending Guard style but in a more of a counter-attack way by keeping everything in reserve. Messes up their pre-battle orbital bombardment thingy (sorry forgot the name:biggrin. So i think you might still see alot of falcons or prisms.

Attacker wise yes spiders and hawks especialy now the hawks can deepstrike then assult into a tank to get to use the haywires instead of landing and then dying to bolter fire like they normally do. However dragons would be better.

If only i did have the book now


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Any race could be given a reason to defend.

Eldar might be excavating an artifact, for example.
Tyranids (perhaps the least likely to be defending) could be a left-behind force, which have infested the planet and are yet to become space-borne.
Dark Eldar might be using the planet to FARM torture-victims.

Who knows?


Anyway, I think Eldar have some great opportunities in PS.
The long-range and deadly Bright Lances will be incredible bunker-busters.
Their static units (support platforms, Dark Reapers, and Defender Guardians) will see a lot more use.
Swooping Hawks will, additionally, have some nice usage, using Skyleap to all but guarantee coming down next turn, every turn, and barraging exposed and cramped infantry with grenades.
Autarchs will be very useful, things coming down on 2+ first turn.

And, of course, Fire Dragons will be taken in just about every game


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Any defensive unit you want on the board has to be very tough indeed. You get the firestorm and whatever the other guy does on turn one. D cannons and war walkers would be lucky to survive all this I think.

Defensively, I think a bunch of wraithlords could do really quite well. Lots of them would survive and they could do a bunch of damage with their flamers, whatever guns they had and in cc.

Then you would want some kind of heavy counter-attack from things like biker councils and dire avengers in serpents. Fire prisms would do a lot of damage coming on from reserve as well. However, none of these units wants to be on the board on turn one. Nothing much does, really.


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## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

Cocakoala said:


> However i always saw the eldar as not defending Guard style but in a more of a counter-attack way by keeping everything in reserve. Messes up their pre-battle orbital bombardment thingy (sorry forgot the name:biggrin. So i think you might still see alot of falcons or prisms.


One of the strategems was "defending sacred ground", or some such thing, that made units within 12 inches of a relic fearless. This is going to be a big boost to anything from Guardian Defenders to Support Weapons, all of whom would turn tale and run after taking a light beating. They may not be able to go all-out Guard style defense, but they'll be able to do something close.



Winterous said:


> Anyway, I think Eldar have some great opportunities in PS.
> The long-range and deadly Bright Lances will be incredible bunker-busters.
> Their static units (support platforms, Dark Reapers, and Defender Guardians) will see a lot more use.
> Swooping Hawks will, additionally, have some nice usage, using Skyleap to all but guarantee coming down next turn, every turn, and barraging exposed and cramped infantry with grenades.
> ...


I'm seriously hoping this will bring a lot of the "less useful" units in the eldar army up to speed. Wraithguard, Shining Spears, Support Weapons, and Vypers being main on the list.


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## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

Someguy said:


> Any defensive unit you want on the board has to be very tough indeed. You get the firestorm and whatever the other guy does on turn one. D cannons and war walkers would be lucky to survive all this I think.
> 
> Defensively, I think a bunch of wraithlords could do really quite well. Lots of them would survive and they could do a bunch of damage with their flamers, whatever guns they had and in cc.
> 
> Then you would want some kind of heavy counter-attack from things like biker councils and dire avengers in serpents. Fire prisms would do a lot of damage coming on from reserve as well. However, none of these units wants to be on the board on turn one. Nothing much does, really.


Firestorm, from the write-up on the GW site, just looks too powerful (S9 AP3!) for a "hold the fort" sort of game. I'm guessing (hoping?) there's some kind of cavat we don't know about yet that either tones this the heck down or defeats it. For example, the ability to deploy from a building after hiding in it during the firestorm. That would keep you from being able to use heavy weapons (not to mention not being able to hide vehicles), your deployment options would be duely limited, but it would at least help you survive (so long as the building wasn't destroyed!).

That actually looks exactly like what the Skyshield landing pad was made for: not to park things on, but to hide under!


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

spudboy said:


> That actually looks exactly like what the Skyshield landing pad was made for: not to park things on, but to hide under!


Well, now you know why they call it a Skyshield.


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## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> Well, now you know why they call it a Skyshield.


:laugh:

Any idea of the strength of it? Bastions have to be something like AV 14 (which is why everyone and their cousin is going to be buying fire prisms). Not much of a shield if it gets toasted on the first volley.

Whiiich brings us to another issue: Eldar buildings! Ruins, probably, unless we're talking planetstrike on a craftworld (ooo...). Probably not coming any time soon, but surely their are some nice images for inspiration floating around.


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

Dont hold your breath on ever seeing Tau or Eldar type Secenery. Everything else is Imperial, Chaosified, or made Orky. I did see a nice pice in the the recent WD Magazine that looks something out of the DoW game. With Twin Link Shuriken Catapults on 4 sides, its alright.


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## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

From GW

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/c...ryId=cat1290177&pIndex=4&aId=15700002&start=5

Unfortunately, this focuses almost completely on attack, and not defense. Not too terribly much new info in this segment about the Eldar, either. Still, looking at how the other armies are written up for attack might give a few hints.


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Well lets just say my all jetbike and grav tank Saim-Hann ain't going to be defending any time soon...

Planetstrike is interesting but the prob i see with it is that most of my armies are designing towards objective-taking, so are highly mechanised and short-range. that is fine if im attacking in PS, but if im defending im pretty screwed

Eldar i think could struggle a bit without maxing out on fire dragons and fire prisms, you really need an army tailored to PS for Eldar as a standard army just doesn't have it IMO


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

um, Depends on your standard list.

I'd do fine attacking...and probably just aswell defending.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Yeah, but realistically you ARE going to build your list for attacking / defending.
Because, you know, of the whole FOC thing, with extra slots?

That insinuates you choose list AFTER you decide who's doing what.


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## spudboy (Jun 13, 2008)

OK, got ahold of the WD Planetstrike issue. The army list for Eldar in there is 2000 points (yikes), and has a few features that seem to be of interest. More about that later. A few things I want to get clear:

In the description of the Aegis Defense Lines, it implies that cover saves can be taken from the Firestorm. Is this accurate?

The Eldar army list shows the Warp Spiders exarch with Surprise Attack. Why?

Now, back to the list (and article) in general.

One thing it does a good job of hightlighting is how important fast-moving units are for the attacker. Anything that footslogs is basically an open target, waiting to be mown down. Lots of Warp Spiders, Hawks, and Spears in the future. Jetbikes might also be more useful than DA as troops, but this remains to be seen.

At the same time, anything that isn't zipping around like a fly on crack looks like it needs to be putting as many of the defenders on the wrong end of a sharp stick as they can. Unfortunately, the Scorpions used in the WD article merely trudged onto the board with do mention of whether infiltrators can actually, you know, infiltrate. Anything that has the DS rule and can survive a round of CC (which none of the eldar units look to be able to do...) will definately have an advantage.

Whiiiich brings me to dedicated transports. Again, without the book, I have no idea how this will work, but they do look like they can make a big impact with Scorpions or Banshees. DS Vehicles (which is, I believe, one of the strategems) could bring the Eldar CC units right into things.


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## Cocakoala (Apr 27, 2009)

YES i got the book finaly!



spudboy said:


> In the description of the Aegis Defense Lines, it implies that cover saves can be taken from the Firestorm. Is this accurate?


The defence line gives you a 4+ cover save that is increased to 2+ when you go to ground behind it. As far as i know firestorm doesnt disallow coversaves. However if i am wrong in this then there is a stratagem for trenches which specificaly gives you a save against firestorm which you can go to ground behind.



spudboy said:


> One thing it does a good job of hightlighting is how important fast-moving units are for the attacker. Anything that footslogs is basically an open target, waiting to be mown down. Lots of Warp Spiders, Hawks, and Spears in the future. Jetbikes might also be more useful than DA as troops, but this remains to be seen.


Yes and i think there is now finaly a use for hawks with DS and haywires
I would think Dire avengers are still going to be a staple in eldar armys attacking or defending.



spudboy said:


> At the same time, anything that isn't zipping around like a fly on crack looks like it needs to be putting as many of the defenders on the wrong end of a sharp stick as they can. Unfortunately, the Scorpions used in the WD article merely trudged onto the board with do mention of whether infiltrators can actually, you know, infiltrate.


No they cant every attacker starts off the board and you can DS ALL infantry so you could just deepstrike them. However then you have to survive a round of shooting and mayby counter assult. They can still outflank though i think.



spudboy said:


> Whiiiich brings me to dedicated transports. Again, without the book, I have no idea how this will work, but they do look like they can make a big impact with Scorpions or Banshees. DS Vehicles (which is, I believe, one of the strategems) could bring the Eldar CC units right into things.


All vehicles come in from your drop zone unless they have the DS rule in whichcase they use it. But still eldar speed means that even if your drop zone is on the other side fo the table from there position then your gunna get there quickly. 

However I think that going aspect warrior infantry and deepstriking everything with the help from the webway assult stratagem which lets you choose which succesful reserve dice rolls go to what unit and reroll the scatter dice will be the best course of action. This will mean that especialy with an autarch or 3 you will almost certainly get those firedragons deepstriking first turn right next to the enemys bastions within melta range. Also you can have 6 units of them. Bye bye great big bsstion, hello pile of molten slag.

Don't you just love Eldar:biggrin:


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