The Eldar: Nasty space Xenos ruining my fun.

[Brother Mayhem]

Hey all,

 

I was wondering if you guys had any tactics for dealing with the these xenos hippies, both with loyalist and traitor astartes. I've been having alot of trouble with dealing with the army with my own Imperial and Chaos Marines, so much so that I've lost all my games against them. The opponent I usually play against has a mixed force, with one of each unit (or there abouts) in his force. I struggle with the Avatar and the tanks mainly, and I was wondering how I could deal with these guys?

 

Cheers all! 

[Trevak Dal]

I can only really comment on the Chaos side of things, personally.  Biomancy sorcerer if you're lucky and roll 'enfeeble' makes Avatars (and other monstrous creatures) cry, other than that Lascannons and avoid combat with Aang as much as you can.

 

TriLas Predators do Okay work in a chaos army, but I prefer Obliterators to Lascannon/multi-melta them again trying for the Enfeeble spell to 'bring them down to size' and wipe them off the board.  I don't have any Lascannon equipped Havocks, but I imagine they'd do work if you had 4 with lascannons and a nice place to camp them.

[Excubitor]

Sternguard make wraith-anything and Avatar cry (Hellfire!).

 

Vs tanks...an IF devastator centurion squad with lascannons and Missile Launchers could help. Hunter/Stalker also works (their AA fire works on skimmers).

 

If I remember their Codex right they don't have much in the way of AA (except their flyers) so Storm Ravens/Talons could help out as well.

[Grey Mage]

Tanks? Tanks? You need volume of S8+ to take down eldar tanks. Its really just that simple. If you can manage to get them in assault because hes over extended himself then more power to yah, but the missile and lascannon spam of yesteryear works wonders. S7 struggles, as one might expect vs AV 12.

 

The avatar though.... hes a nasty bugger, but you can take him out with a relicblade and SS chapter master with artificer armor- dont need anything fancier than that, could be on a bike if you like. Avatars only got a 3+4++, most of his survivability is his outright immunity to two damage types- melta and flamer- and his T6 *wich we covered with the relicblade*. Hes also slow as beans really- 6" a fleet d6" is easily outdone by bikes, and matched even by rhinos.

[hallodx]

Hi man, maybe post what your army looks like and your opponents?

Did he field quick shot Avatar operating Icarus? Did he spam Wave Serpents? And what do you have?

[tdemayo]

Eldar are annoying, but they can be killed with a normal Space Marine army easily enough.  The typical Eldar army these days consists of Wave Serpents filled with Guardians, Dire Avengers, or (sometimes) Wraithguard, maybe supported by some Wraithknights, tanks, jetbikes or Warp Spiders.

 

Concentrate long-ranged AT fire on their transports.  Expect it to take a while to bring any of them down. If your opponent foolishly closes into assault range with a Wave Serpent, assault it.  Their rear armor is 10, and every Space Marine (more or less) has  a Krak Grenade.  When the squishy Space Elves come tumbling out, slaughter them with concentrated bolter fire.

 

Also, I'd read this earlier thread:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/281003-beating-the-eldar/

[Hellios]

The key to beating Eldar (and this trick works with other armies as well...) is to not let them play their game. Dakka da choppa and choppa da dakka line of thought. As for the Eldar vehicles... If used correctly they are tough. You need to work out your target priority. AKA stop the tank that has the most dangerous unit inside. You don't have to destroy them... A Wave Serpent with Howling Banshees inside that can't move means those Banshees  are not much of a threat without exposing themselves first (at least... I hope...). A Fireprism without a Prism cannon is a whole load of useful.

[Scotyknows]

I feel I am in a very similar situation, Eldar have seemed very strong since Ive started playing again recently, its like every one of their troops was given a jump pack in the last codex.. The Avatar Ive given up on trying to actually kill, just try to avoid it, psychic powers are the best way to slow it down imo. Anything that you can field that can actually deal with him will be way too expensive against his bloated statline. Wave serpents are equally impossible too, they just require too many shots to bring down. At least more than you can field for equal points. Lets hope your friend never figures out just how many wave serpents he can cram into a 1850 pt list. shudder... The game isnt rly balanced at a 1 to 1 ratio right now, and considering that the last GT had almost 50% eldar players speaks to their op status right now.

Edit: Bell of lost souls article on the current state of the meta.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/10/40k-army-meta-q4-2013-edition.html
And I should add that im very happy that the actual guy who one had a non spammy eldar army, even tho it was damned eldar.....
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/10/40k-when-doves-cry-feast-of-blades.html

[[TA]Typher]

 

I feel I am in a very similar situation, Eldar have seemed very strong since Ive started playing again recently, its like every one of their troops was given a jump pack in the last codex.. The Avatar Ive given up on trying to actually kill, just try to avoid it, psychic powers are the best way to slow it down imo. Anything that you can field that can actually deal with him will be way too expensive against his bloated statline. Wave serpents are equally impossible too, they just require too many shots to bring down. At least more than you can field for equal points. Lets hope your friend never figures out just how many wave serpents he can cram into a 1850 pt list. shudder... The game isnt rly balanced at a 1 to 1 ratio right now, and considering that the last GT had almost 50% eldar players speaks to their op status right now.

 

Edit: Bell of lost souls article on the current state of the meta.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/10/40k-army-meta-q4-2013-edition.html

 

 

And I should add that im very happy that the actual guy who one had a non spammy eldar army, even tho it was damned eldar.....

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/10/40k-when-doves-cry-feast-of-blades.html

 

 

This is a prime example of why being able to take multiple T8 W6 Sv 3+ Jump Monstrous creatures is broken. If you read his responses it's clear that they won him the tourney. Couple that with dirt cheap troops that rend and you have lopsided battles. Not many armies can deal with that.

[Lysere]

As far as killing an avatar, the same things we've always used against large and tough models work just fine, as do Grav weapons. Thunder hammer terminators can do a lot of work against tough targets, especially if a nearby gravgun can put a wound through first to bring him down to your speed. Assuming he isn't just spamming his best units (which from what you said doesn't seem to be the case) then you should be fine. Also if you have powerful AT guns on the table and he ever actually fires his serpent shield, do him a favor and scrap that serpent in an instant.

[Azash]

I have found Devastator centurions with Grav Cannon/Amp to be very helpful in solving the Eldar riddle. I run them in a list with Tigarius with Divination powers. Generally your getting them a 4+ invuln and the T5 makes it practically impossible for most of the Eldar units to 1 shot them.

 

In turn Grav Cannon's will wipe out just about everything in the Eldar codex that is annoying, especially with Tigarius giving them things like ignores cover, reroll's on the to hits etc. Now you can't run them like world beaters and just walking them out there but they work great with the old space marine tactic of staying grouped up.

 

Prioritize your targets as the Eldar are not really durable. Move to the middle of the board stay together and make sure you have overlapping fields of fire. This forces wave serpents outside of 30" kill bubble so now they have to use there shield (60") range to try to whittle the centurions down at range. Once they do that you need missile launchers or las cannons to support and take advantage of the opportunity or fast moving high str weapons like attack bikes. Another good unit to take with this strategy is the storm talon as it is good at getting rear armor shots on the wave serpents especially if they are trying to face towards your main force. The Centurions will kill off the wraith knights pretty easy same with the avatar and wraith guard again you need long ranged high str support fire to help them out.