How to defeat Eldar?

[Selleck]

My primary opponent has started to build an Eldar army - I have no idea what it contains and what units he can field besides GW Eldar battle force box.

 

Does anyone have some general advice how to defeat Eldar - and what-to-do and what-not-to-do ...and what I can expect?

 

Thank you in advance for your help

[the jeske]

which build and with which army .

[Selleck]

which build and with which army .

 

I have an unfinished Grey Knights army - but I thinking: terminators (with halbreds and psycannons), a librarian, a dreadknight and a dreadnought with twin autocannons...

[*Furyou Miko]

Good start.

 

Against Guardians, the humble Storm Bolter is sufficient. Especially if you can Vindicare-out their Warlocks. Failing that... do you get regular Flamers? Eldar are light troops for the most part. AP5 is sufficient for most Eldar Troops.

 

Autocannons are the god of killing Eldar vehicles. Against AV12, Str 7 Heavy 2 is actually better on average than Str 9 Heavy 1, but I don't think you get lascannons all that often in GK armies anyway.

[Gentlemanloser]

Don't use Psychic Powers, and shoot them to death.

 

Avoid attacking the Falcons unless there's no other targets.

 

If he uses Dark Reapers, keep any PA troops in vehicles.

 

Expect your own vehicles to die to the Avatar, Fire Dragons, Swooping Hawks, Haywire Grenades, Warlock Spears, and D Cannons (on however he gets them).

[Son of Rawl]

This is what I like about the Eldar codex, it maybe old but it still puts fear into the newest available codex

[chaplainmeliadus]

I find that a dreadnight with a hammer and heavy incinerator will really lay the hurt on Eldar (and most things, but that's besides the point). Deep strike or use a PT to get close enough to take out any rangers or pathfinders he may have, as AP1 sniper weapons can counter him pretty easily. Then you can laugh at pretty much any non-vehicle he can throw at you. Wraithlords will be wounded on 2s with the hammer, and Avatars fall to him SOOOOO easily, as you can force weapon AND daemon-bane the Avatar.

[the jeske]

if terminators then draigo wing. If not draigo , then max out rifle man take an assasin [if your lucky maybe you will roll +4 on two die . I cant but some can]. stay away from non multi wound allocation high cost units , because eldar are made to kill units like that . as others said dont use psychic powers most of the time it wont be needed . castle up and if possible get a dread with the -4Ld debuff for psykers it will eliminate the problem mind war and doom .

psyacanons in every slot possible and you should do ok , no matter what kind of a build the eldar player brings.

[Liba terminatus]

I find that a dreadnight with a hammer and heavy incinerator will really lay the hurt on Eldar (and most things, but that's besides the point). Deep strike or use a PT to get close enough to take out any rangers or pathfinders he may have, as AP1 sniper weapons can counter him pretty easily. Then you can laugh at pretty much any non-vehicle he can throw at you. Wraithlords will be wounded on 2s with the hammer, and Avatars fall to him SOOOOO easily, as you can force weapon AND daemon-bane the Avatar.

 

Err isn't the avatar a deamon? and therefore has eternal warrior? If so I think your doing your force weapons wrong :P

 

And watch out for banshees, by god stay away from the banshees

[Drachnon]

Avoid attacking the Falcons unless there's no other targets.

I wouldn't ignore falcons though killing them is nearly impossible, getting a shaken result against their AV12 is pretty easy. Just stop firing after preventing him from firing for a turn. If he takes a pulse laser + star cannon combo he'll turn your expensive terminators quickly into pulp.

 

The Avatar is a daemon so don't be too afraid of him, killing daemons is our specialty after all.

 

Fire dragons can be scary, in my gaming group I have a guy who always fields 6 in his falcon and they can really hurt both our vehicles and our troops if they're not in cover. Also an fire dragon exarch with crack shot ignores cover including smoke launchers.

 

Against Guardians, the humble Storm Bolter is sufficient. Especially if you can Vindicare-out their Warlocks. Failing that... do you get regular Flamers? Eldar are light troops for the most part. AP5 is sufficient for most Eldar Troops.

 

Not true the only eldar troops with a 5+ save are guardians and rangers. Guardians pretty much die just by looking at them and they most likely won't contribute much if your opponent fields them (most eldar players I know prefer Dire Avengers as their basic troops). Rangers can be annoying especially if they are pathfinders in cover, 2+ cover goes a long way so against them some flamers might help.

All eldar aspect warriors have 4+ or 3+ saves. All exarchs have 3+ regardless of their aspect.

 

If you go terminators you might want to look out for howling banshees combined with a farseer with doom. Doom + banshee combo alone means that you opponent will strike at I10 in the first round of combat and reroll to wound, with power weapons.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The avatar is not an eternal warrior nor are the ctan. Old Codices have major jet lag. I have not hAd any major problems rolling the space fairies with my junk. It is easy to predict their every move.

[thade]

The avatar is not an eternal warrior nor are the ctan. Old Codices have major jet lag. I have not hAd any major problems rolling the space fairies with my junk. It is easy to predict their every move.

No offense to your usual opponents intended here...but if you think Eldar players are easy to predict, you haven't faced a good one yet. Savy Eldar players are no pushovers. They have no shortage of shenanigans.

[IdOfEntity]

And watch out for banshees, by god stay away from the banshees

 

Ehh... My banshees were once caught on the wrong end of a couple of Heavy Flamers. Let's just say Banshees are squishy to a well prepared opponent, no matter the distance. Just don't get into melee with them.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Banshees were really bad news back in 3rd edition then the Harlequins took over in 4th edition. Now you rarely ever see either. I run across a lot of mechdar players. Typically you see a few serpents with Dire Avengers for scoring, a couple of serpents with Fire Dragons, a couple of Fire Prisms.... Eldrad is still popular. Personally I don't see Falcons all that often as the Fire Prism is more popular now. The army doesn't generate that much shooting and is based on continually moving the skimmers then grabbing objectives late in the game. I say they are predictable because I have played against it so often. It's not that hard to surpress or remove their skimmers over the course of the game if you have the right weapons (psycannons and psyflemen both fit the bill). They are not much of a threat in close combat and most players seem to want to avoid it. That's my take on the army based upon my experience. If you play very aggressive and focus on taking out the right skimmers that is the way to go.

 

G :tu:

[thade]

Banshees still hit extremely hard if they get into melee. Provided you keep them from melee, they're not too bad to deal with.

 

Harlies are more difficult to keep out of melee given how slippery they are, but while they hit hard they don't hit as hard as Banshees.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I think the jeske gave some excellent advice. I have found that Justicar Thawn can work some miracles versus the space fairies. He is very disruptive when he re animates and can work his way through a flank alone. One time he took out Eldrad with his halberd successfully casting Hammerhand then activating his force weapon. That shut down Runes of Warding and the rest of my army then proceeded on an unchecked psychic rampage. :(

 

G :D

[Gentlemanloser]

Really, with S3, the only time you need to worry about Banshees is if your unit is Doomed.

 

Then they usually are doomed. :)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

They aren't what they used to be that is for sure certainly.

 

G :P

[thade]

Then they usually are doomed. :P

A thousand times this! Stupid Farseers throw that dumb spell everywhere.

[Drachnon]

Doom is a very good spell, but I don't think we get to complain about psychic powers. Personally I think the reason you see doom so much is because there aren't many better spells in the eldar list.

Eldirth storm doesn't have enough range, strength or low enough AP to be useful

Fortune can be good (kinda fun on pathfinders in cover for a 2+ reroll cover save), but it should really have been a spell you cast as a reaction to your opponents shooting. Now the opponent can plan in his movement phase which units to shoot and ignore the single hard to kill unit.

Guide is ok but not compared to doom, doom helps all units shooting at the target where guide can only affect one. It only works for one shooting phase where doom helps you in your shooting and 2 assault phases. Reroll to wound is more preferable over reroll to hit because aspect warriors like dire avengers already hit on a 3+ but wound MEQ on a 4+. Still I'm usually running against a combination of these two with guide on a dark reaper squad in which case it becomes really scary.

Mind war is ok at picking out a heavy weapon from a squad but is pretty useless against LD 9 or 10 targets especially if they have an invulnerable save.

[Spacefrisian]

The avatar is not an eternal warrior nor are the ctan. Old Codices have major jet lag. I have not hAd any major problems rolling the space fairies with my junk. It is easy to predict their every move.

 

if you are using youre anti Daemon rule vs Ctan than you should slap yourself realy hard in the face, Ctan arent Daemons infact they are the complete opposite.

[Drachnon]

He's not talking about the anti daemon property of the nemesis force weapons but the normal ability to cause instant death by passing a leadership/psychic test.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Hence the reference to old codices. ;)

 

G :tu:

[Reclusiarch Darius]

As others have said, it kinda depends on his build.

 

HQ:

 

Librarian: Psychic hood, warding stave lets you repel 'Perils' you suffer in close-combat (teheheh ambiguous wording confirmed in FAQ), and his powers are hilarious against Eldar. Halberds not fast enough? I10 on my Terminator blob. Avatar you say? Combo 'Hammerhand' and 'Might', now S6 and the squad can seperately activate force weapons to slap him down simultaneously (he'll still kill a few but eh). Wraithguard you say? 'Warp Rift' would like an Initiative test. Yes, the Runes of Face-Melting will screw you, but just hug that staff close and hope to roll under on the 3D6.

 

Elite:

 

Vindicare: Warlocks are intensely annoying, as are Farseers. If he doesn't shield them inside overpriced transports, feel free to snipe them out of squads. Also, Eldar are one of the few armies left without recourse to Ld10, Stubborn, Fearless etc outside of the Avatar aura (and he's going to die in short order), so pinning is perfectly possible. A great move against Wraith armies is to snipe out the Spiritseers, thus making the Wraith units go inert every so often.

 

Purifiers: Wounds before blows are stuck is pretty insane, and multiple psycannons means they can gun down pesky Eldar transports before they become a problem. Harlequins in particular do not wanna tangle with these guys (

 

Troops:

 

Terminator blob: Eldar have no good hard counters to this. You hit ahead of everything except Banshees and Harlies (both of which you reduce to red paste with dakka if they don't contact on the charge, which is perfectly achievable with 'Sanctuary' up). You have too many wounds to kill off with shooting (even Fire Prisms have their work cut out, as you can spread out and leverage 3+ cover saves from 'Shrouding'). Psy-bolt (an upgrade I advocate here, because their psycannon output is so low) means even with cover or armour, Eldar are still going to die in droves to your shooting. Seer Council has to contend with your 2+ armour, and you're forcing re-rollable 4+ invul with a lot of attacks and wounds ('Hammerhand' and/or 'Might' stacked means you ID the Farseer if he fails even one save).

 

Strike squad: Good auxilary scoring unit, when combat squadded, you can quietly hold objectives and prevent Warp Spiders landing on your flanks effectively using 'Warp Quake'.

 

Heavy Support:

 

Dreadknight: Greatsword and teleporter mandatory (you need the speed and re-rolls to catch his vehicles), heavy incinerator or psycannon highly recommended. You can generally ignore the Avatar, just go straight for his scoring units and eat them. Also great for killing annoying backfield units like Dark Reapers (who can't hurt him lol) or Fire Prisms (who can manage one wound at best, and then die to his close-combat attacks). He can also reposition to catch things like War Walkers outflanking (again, re-rolls to hit and damage rolls is painful for your opponent).

 

PsyDread: I've been running mine with multi-melta as the secondary, but against Eldar, double twin autocannon is the way to go. Their vehicles rarely die to single shots, it's all about massing fire until you immobilise or destroy them.