BA versus Eldar

[Tabgoi]

I have been away for a while, but I have been getting back into the hobby recently. My problem is dealing with Eldar players. I have been decimating chaos lists, but I can only pull a draw on eldar by annihilating their troops. The list I am getting gutted by has four dire avenger squads, two ranger, two wraith lord with a pair of bright lances each, a fire prism, and an avatar at 1,000 points. I normally run very aggressive, seize ground and out maneuver the enemy list. Unfortunately the only reason I am tying is because I can maneuver FAR better than my opponent. But with the cheap anti tank I cannot keep a vehicle alive past turn one, and I have nothing to touch the avatar with his initiative 10. Any suggestions on how to tackle this? I mean he is fielding cheap troops with more fire power and very similar armor. I have tried vindis, sternguard, baals, tac squads, assault squads, you name it. Sang priests help a bit, but so much high ap weapons, cover saves are only going so far.

[Jakbal]

One of my main opponents is Eldar and he tears me up on the regular.  Looking forward to seeing some advice in this thread.

[Tabgoi]

My thoughts run towards running two storm ravens, one with a full DC unit and a chaplain, one with a RAS and a Sang Priest, a dread or two. You give up any objectives and really need to rely on annihilation, but its the only thing I can think of. And it leaves you hosed against most other lists. But for all my minis I have yet to buy a SR.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Onto a tough one here... Eldar are one of the Big Four at the moment, and BA are amongst the weaker armies out there due to their age (though I disagree with the sweeping statement of 'worst army in the game'). The big advantage you have is mobility. His Dire Avengers only have relatively short ranged guns. Deep-strike melta will make short work of the fire prism, especially if you get it with a pod. Other than that, just try and use your range to your advantage - heavy bolters and assault cannons are great, a Baal predator would be awesome.

 

I would suggest sternguard in a pod with combi-melta, as they can turn up on turn 1 and smash either the prism or a wraithlord (poisoned ammo is your friend, and those buggers only have 3 wounds). Outflanking Baal predators can do a number on all things space-elf, especially if you make his armour a priority. The avatar is best dealt with via the simple expedient of staying away from the damn thing.

 

Finally, LoS blocking terrain is huge - you'll find games much improved if you can get some to play with.

[Cronhour]

try to lul the avatar into charging you in terrain, no assault grenades means you nullify his initiative.

[Chaplain Admetus]

It's still going to batter just about anything you put in front of it that isn't called Mephiston (and even then...), you just might have a chance of taking a wound or two with grenades.

[Cronhour]

It's still going to batter just about anything you put in front of it that isn't called Mephiston (and even then...), you just might have a chance of taking a wound or two with grenades.

 

I've only fought one twice tbh, once was knocked down to two wounds through prescience krak missile devs then it tried charging 10 bolter DC in cover next turn and they finished it off, other time it charged 5 Thss termies plus corbs and it got killed after a few rounds of combat.

 

I think the inq codex isn't a bad one to throw into a list as coteaz is great value for buffs at 100 or you can add another cheaper one in starting at 25 points, they're battle brothers and all come with the grenades that reduce psykers or demons to initiative one when assaulted or assaulting, plus they give you the option of switching warlord around and using another traits table. Psyocculum with devs or a sniper squad would be nice giving bs10 against psykers, we know how the elder like to use they psykers. How about 4 bs10 plasma cannons?

[knife&fork]

The Avatar? Force weapon him with Mephiston, kill him with sternguard, etc etc.

[Kanis]

As Eldar is my oldest army I'll try and help here. 

 

Knife is right about the Avatar, it's a relatively cheap and scary CC monster, but he's still open to Mephy's force, Hellfire of Sternguard, or honestly good ole' fashioned bolter fire from various sources; but, if you end up near it, back up and soften it up first and get him to charge you in terrain as mentioned above for lack of grenades and he's not so bad.

 

The lack of waves serpents is your friend here honestly, as even with Battle-focus you are faster than he is. Use this as much as you can and get him to split up his forces and deny him massed shuriken shots. I would say based on how many Sternguard you have, Pod in 10 and spit with Combat squads with 5 using either dragon rounds on those Rangers (insta-dead), and 5 with combi-melta for that Prism (or Hellfire to soften those Wraithlords nicely). I can't praise the utility of Sternguard against Eldar, or most foes honestly. Just think ahead of how to best use their firepower.

 

Hope this helps as it's hard to give more accurate advice without knowing play-styles and how your board is setup. LOS blocking terrain like said above is key against Eldar/Tau like armies as it denies those nastier units like Pathfinders and Prisms. Good luck Brother!

[Jolemai]

Tabgoi, what list have you been running?

[Tabgoi]

Okay, let me preface this with I have been away for a while.  Most of my play time was during third edition, I was in the army through fourth edition and I had maybe thirty matches in fifth.  So a lot of what I have been running has just to see what it will do and how effective is it.  Against chaos this apparently is everything as I have yet to lose more than two models to a chaos force in a single match with this edition.  I literally put a list together out of what I could find in one case for an 1850 match not knowing what army he was playing and walked over him.  I am pretty good at maneuvering, isolating individual units and over powering them.  Even without transports I tend to be the one controlling the flow of battle.  In third I lost three matches out of a couple hundred and in two of them I found after the fact that the other person was cheating.  Fourth and fifth, limited matches but no loses.  Which leads me to my current predicament of losing repeatedly to Eldar.  I have just lost more matches in two weeks then I have in my previous fifteen years playing.

 

So my first actually designed list was a razor spam style, three RAS, meltaguns, Razorbacks with twin linked assault cannons, a Reclusiarch, Sang priest or two, and two baals.  I lost horrifically.  I played a relic match running ten sternguard, two SPs, vindi, and two tac squads combat squaded (one with flamer ML, the other Lascannon plasma gun).  I got the two combat squads with the big guns into some terrain with great field of view, but cover saves for the fire prism made them next to useless.  The sternguards wiped out better than half his army and I forced a tied by wiping his troops, but I had no way to get the relic with my remaining troops in the time left.  The next match I ran pretty similar with a strong hold mission I think it was, where you each have to hold an objective in your zone for three points with slay the warlord and linebreaker.  Random turn length set the end at turn five before I repositioned a combat squad to my objective (it was four inches away for a better firing lane) and it took four turns to take down the fire prism, freaking three penetrating hits to take it down thanks to a lot of ones on the damage table.  I took out everything but one dire avenger squad, a lone exarch that survived previous shooting and the avatar who were all hole up on the objective with me bringing my seven remaining sternguards into ideal firing position.  But he hard the objective, killed my warlord, and had first blood.  I ran one list with Sang guard, but I do not remember the specifics of it, and it did not do well.

 

The new list I am looking at is something like RAS 7 members, Reclusiarch JP, Sang Priest JP& lightning claw, ten man sternguard with drop pod, vindi, ten man tac squad with ML, storm bolter because of spare points and flamer.  Combat squad up middle as we normally have a large piece of terrain there, vindi lurks until the wraithlords drop, sternguard right into the thick of things, if they take out the wraithlords I could care less if they die the wraith lords are worth a bit more points and are WAY more dangerous.  RAS with the characters should draw some fire from the sternguards so who knows if they will die out.  Comes out to 999 points.  I almost debated reworking to include more boots on the ground, but I think the mobility of that RAS should more than make up for the depleted troop numbers, but if I take the ump packs from the characters and massage things a bit I could probably fit in a scout squad or something.

[Tabgoi]

Drop pod worked, big guns never tire, 10 to 2 victory (slay the warlord, line breaker, killed everything but one wraith lord and the prism which is apparently invulnerable).  Of course now he is altering his list to have three wraith lords with two bright lances, 20 dire avengers, 10 rangers, wave serpent with ten wraith guard.  I just don't get how he can get that many more troops who are ignoring that many armor saves and get to save against basically every gun I have.

[Kanis]

Well done on the win there, congrats! Also that guy can't fit 10 Wraithguard into a Serpent thankfully haha.