# Tactics for new Eldar player



## cinimod (Apr 8, 2010)

I am new to the game. I have a farseer, 2 Five man dire avengers squads, and the codex. Any suggestions on what to get next?


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## PanzerPig (Apr 15, 2008)

Can't go wrong with a Wave serpent and some Fire Dragons. Both are some of the best units we can get and will pretty much find their way into every list . 

With Eldar we cannot really do walking armies due to T3, 4+ save and low model count, we need those transports, but once we get going it can be devastating, so yeah, aspects and transports


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## murdock129 (Apr 3, 2008)

Fire Dragons and Wave Serpents as mentioned. Warp Spiders and Shining Spears are a good pair of choices (at least most of the time). Avatars and Wraithlords can be very good if used right (I have a tendency to tagteam them, or put two Wraithlords with an Avatar)


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

murdock129 said:


> Warp Spiders and Shining Spears are a good pair of choices (at least most of the time). Avatars and Wraithlords can be very good if used right (I have a tendency to tagteam them, or put two Wraithlords with an Avatar)


Oh god, no.

Please, no. No. :no:

If you want to actually win games, choose a selection from this list:

Eldrad
Farseers
Fire Dragons (In a transport - Falcon or Serpent)
Banshees or Scorpions (In a Serpent)
Dire Avengers (In a transport - Falcon or Serpent)
Rangers - If you really have to have something on foot, make sure to have 6+ of them
War Walkers with Scatter lasers or Shuricannons (all with 2 of the same gun)
Falcons
Fire Prisms
Small Jetbike squads - use to contest or claim objectives, do not use them to kill anything, they will fail.

Some "fun" units you can use that won't do terribly:

Harlequins
Yriel
Wraithlords
Warp Spiders

Terrible units you should never include in your army:

Everything else.

Hope that helps! My personal choice for your next few purchases would be: Falcon, Fire Dragons, Rangers and a Wave Serpent. Gives you 2 Troops choices, a HQ and a nice mix of anti-infantry and anti-tank. Should let you play some small battles and see what direction you want to take the army in.

My second piece of advice is to buy as much as you can from Ebay or Wayland Games/Gifts for Geeks/Other online store - it will save you a lot of money (make sure to point this out to your parents if they're the ones buying you models)!


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## Shadowfire (Mar 20, 2010)

murdock129 said:


> Fire Dragons and Wave Serpents as mentioned. Warp Spiders and Shining Spears are a good pair of choices (at least most of the time). Avatars and Wraithlords can be very good if used right (I have a tendency to tagteam them, or put two Wraithlords with an Avatar)


Seriously.... Shining Spears..... you having a bath mate???

They look good on paper-ish, ok on the shelf... but to actually use in a game, nah.:headbutt:

Save your money, save your points, listen to Sethis (he does know what he's on about) or if you really want, get some jetbikes, proxy them and see for yourself.
Then, at least, you'll have a nippy Troops choice :so_happy:



Final Note... Prince Yriel... ideal if your opponent is hampering your psychic abilities with SM Librarians or whinging about Eldar Farseers [Eldrad]


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## Siphon (Jan 17, 2009)

I agree with Sethis' list mostly. 

I do not think the Avatar is terrible in friendly games. I think he should be added to the "fun units that won't do terribly" list. In friendly games or low point games (500-1000) he's a real beast. Add fortune and forget about him dying without absorbing a massive amount of firepower.


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## Fausto (Apr 14, 2010)

Sethis said:


> Oh god, no.
> 
> Please, no. No. :no:
> 
> ...


In my own personnel list, Banshees and Scorpions are definitely in the fun section.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Well if you put them there, then that gives us no assault troops of any kind, which can be risky given the amount of times I have been close to swamped by the new Horde armies, with 60 Boyz and 20 Outflanking Fleet gaunts, you can run out of space real fast, and it's nice to have the option of mixing it up with them instead of being forced to just run the hell away.

And I think everyone can agree that Banshees in a Serpent are better than either Harlies, Storm Guardians or Shining Spears...

It's not meant to be a definitive list, just a guideline as to what you can expect units to accomplish. Of course different people will field different units and play in different ways, I just hope that the list can give some general guidance on what to buy next, as opposed to a fellow Eldar player wasting his money on Support Weapons or Vypers.


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

In concordance with Sethis:
While Banshees DO eat a Fire Dragon slot, the fact that our only non-elites CC unit is a seer council, and the only really sane way to field a seer council is jetseer...

At 45 points a model you're usually not fielding that third unit of FDs anyways. If you're worried about transports rather than tanks then the extra lances/scatters you can afford may very well make up for it.

IF Harlies could start the game in serpents, they'd likely be better. Ignorng Dif terrain and having HnR is solid, even if they aren't amazingly survivable. The fact that you can "accidentally" wipe a target out and survive the next round of shooting is phenomenal, and they strike a really, really nice counterballance between Scorps and Banshees. 5 s4 PW attacks on the charge is still nice, and the huge number of s4 attacks that may have rending (although the cost of Harlequin's Kisses is currently twice what it should be) adds up. Plus... they can take meltaweapons. Yay, 6" range meltaweapons. Sure, it's not great, but if nothing else it's a CC unit that does a number on dreads if it can survive till it's next turn.


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## Wolfgang_Molder (Mar 3, 2008)

Those two Farseers are a good choice, great horde killer, pop doom and then cast Eldritch strom, re-rolling all of those strength 3 wounds, I forget what AP it is, can really give orks, nids, guard, anything with big units a real headache.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I think I mathhammered it a while back and Harlies are definitely point-for-point worse than Scorpions and Banshees in terms of models killed and casualties taken, but there's no way to accurately gauge the "value" of Veil of Tears and Hit and Run mathematically, so...

I'd still rather have 10 Banshees in a Serpent than 10 Harlies on foot, to be honest.


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## dthwish09 (Oct 15, 2009)

I believe that the best tactic I ever learned that helped most with me winning games with my eldar is, movement wins games for eldar what I tend to do when I am assaulting a unit with one of my pure assault units like banshees, say I have a 10 man squad of banshees charging a 10 man squad of gaunts, I am only going to send in some of my banshees to actually attack and position my others withen coherency of my unit so that after I have won the assault I have already carefully positioned my models so that even though they did not get to use full advantage of all their attacks they are now able to consolidate into a safer position such as some terrain or LOS blocker. This little movement tactic helps alot with pre determining how a game is going to be played, for a couple turns atleast. It also works with every army and I have found that when people just get into 40k their concept of movement is far off from the tactical norm.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

dthwish09 said:


> I have a 10 man squad of banshees charging a 10 man squad of gaunts, I am only going to send in some of my banshees to actually attack and position my others withen coherency of my unit so that after I have won the assault I have already carefully positioned my models so that even though they did not get to use full advantage of all their attacks they are now able to consolidate into a safer position such as some terrain or LOS blocker.


I don't have a rulebook on me, but I'm fairly certain that all models in an assaulting unit MUST move into base to base contact if possible, or failing that, move the full 6" towards the enemy unit. Unless you're right on the edge of your assault range then all of your models must engage if possible.

I use a similar tactic, where I deliberately make sure that I am about 5-6" away from the enemy, so only 1 or 2 of my models can make it into base to base, forcing the enemy unit to use it's full follow up move to get their models into combat. The ability to "drag" a combat 6" in the direction of your choice is very powerful.


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

Sethis said:


> I think I mathhammered it a while back and Harlies are definitely point-for-point worse than Scorpions and Banshees in terms of models killed and casualties taken, but there's no way to accurately gauge the "value" of Veil of Tears and Hit and Run mathematically, so...
> 
> I'd still rather have 10 Banshees in a Serpent than 10 Harlies on foot, to be honest.


They're worse at either unit's intended purpose. Furious Charge, HnR and meltaweapons are nice, they just don't excel at any one thing.

You _know _you'd take storm serpents full of harlies if you could. :wink:


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

If I could take Storm Serpents then I'd take 4 units of Storm Guardians, and a Storm Serpent of 10 Banshees, Scorpions and Harlies. That would be fun. Especially if the Serpents had melta weapons... :grin:


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