chaos vs eldar

[khurdur]

can anyone give me any advice about facing eldar? I've got a 4k battle coming up on Thursday. Are there any tricks/combos in general I should look out for?

 

I know they have

 

-maneuvaerability

-divination

-wave seprents

wraithknights

-nasty crimson hunters

 

Anything else?

 

I'll probably have abby in LR, a drake, 2x3 nugle oblits, 2 daemon pricne with daemon weapons,an allied thirster, 3 or 4 squads of CSM, a squad of NMs, a juggerlord, and a few other things.

[Trevak Dal]

The Avatar is common in "footdar" lists and large point games.  He makes all Eldar fearless within 12 inches of him.  Do not, under any circumstances fight the Avatar in close combat (except maybe with Abaddon).  Shoot that false idol of Khorne, though he is immune to Melta and flamer weapons, so it's Lascannons, Plasma Guns and Assault Cannons from your Obliterators until that :cussbag is dead-ed like Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect.

 

Wraithguard can have s4 ap2 flamers.  Or s10 ap1 (12 inch range) guns, both with special rules (distort IIRC) that if they wound on a 6 (iirc) they cause Instant Death.

 

Their Warlocks and other Psykers have access to Witch Blades-which have no AP value, but have Fleshbane (wound on a 2+) make sure you know which if any units have these guys-and proceed to Vector Strike, Dragon Fire and otherwise, shoot the Soul gems off of those units.

 

Mark of Nurgle spawn can be a MAJOR sad-face inducing unit on some of their monstrous creatures.  They only get 5-6 turns to be able to use them, and Spawn ignore difficult terrain (beasts).  Drop 2-3 units of 3-5 spawn into an enemy Monstrous Creature, except the Avatar, they have maybe 3-4 attacks each, toughness 6 means even if they SMASH (half their attacks to go up to s10) they can't instantly kill them.  And they're going to have to kill every.  Single. One of them.  It puts the Eldar player in a tough spot:

 

Do they commit more units to the spawn melee to try and free their Major Killing Units, or do they push on with their Guardians and stuff that your JuggerLord, FuryAxe daemon prince and MacePrince are coming to squash?

 

About your Daemon Princes:  Try to tag team them, because they can get challenge blocked-unless there's two.  If possible, take the challenge with the MacePrince-because he will wound the squad while he's killing the Exarch, and the AxePrince will Chop that Meat of anything that's left.

 

You might want to consider Rhinos for you CSMs if you have them-they can save your guys from being instantly killed if he takes star cannons (the s6 ap3 3 blasts) on his Wraithknights.

 

Dark Reapers if pointed out horrendously nearly put tau to shame with the amount of s8ap3 they can dump out.

 

Fire Dragons got 18 inch melta guns.

 

Striking Scorpions hit at strength 4 base (scorpion Chainsword), and have furious charge IIRC so they can be s5.  They also have 3+ save, but they are still toughness 3.  They will usually infiltrate to your backline and cause trouble for you.

 

Dire avengers are the Shootier Aspect Warriors and troops.

 

The Illic(sp?) Nightspear Special Character guy makes Rangers into Pathfinders, and every shot they make is a precision shot-they can infiltrate up to 1" away from your models, and he has an AP2 sniper weapon with Distort.

If he gets more than one Psyker with Renewer, those guys are priority because they will bring back his nasty stuff when you are on the cusp of killing it for good.

 

If you can bring Daemonettes or other Slaanesh marked Daemons (especially) or CSMs, after the Avatar is dead (if they take him at all), it can start to cause REAL PROBLEMS for the Eldar Player, since they take an extra penalty against Fear and leadership checks against things with the Mark of /Daemon of Slaanesh.

[Dammeron]

They are fast, they are nasty; they have enormous amounts of AP3 or less firepower. Their major drawback is a certain degree of vulnerability, though they do have certain heavier armoured units to compensate.

 

You might consider taking the Crimson Slaughter supplement as a base for your army list, or at least one detachment of it, and giving as many units as possible either The Mark of Slaanesh or The Daemon of Slaanesh upgrade; that way, all of your models will cause fear automatically and the majority of them will gain bonuses to the resultant leadership tests they impose.

 

Allied Slaaneshi daemons are massively useful against Eldar; they have the speed, high initiative and general hitting power necessary to hit the Eldar where it hurts.

 

Ideally, you want as many disruption units as possible; when Eldar forces are picked off piecemeal, they come apart like well cooked meat. It's when they are allowed to concert their forces and get into a rhythm that you have to worry. In that regard, it might actually be worth taking a couple of deep striking units that can do something to distract and disrupt the flow of your enemy's battle plan before it can build up impetus. Again, Slaaneshi daemons would be ideal and characterful.

 

Noise Marines can do a number on the Eldar, as they do away with the vast majority of the army's principle defence in the form of cover, and with Blastmasters, Doom Sirens etc can also make a mess of some of the heavier armoured units. Just make sure you get them into appropriate range before the bladestorm hits the fan.

 

Make a beeline for the Avatar and any Farseers he has; kill them, and you take away certain crucial lynchpins of the army. Let them live and keep bolstering and buffing and hurling fire and psychic frippery at you, and they will make you sorry. Wraithguard are your worst nightmare; kill them and kill them quick, or watch them zap massive sections of your army into oblivion. Ditto Dark Reapers and Fire Dragons.

 

The Last Memory of Yuranthros from the Black Legion codex makes an utter mess of the Eldar if you can get it into range, as does the Burning Brand of Skalathrax. Template and blast weapons in general are not their friends. Though you won't hear many say it, the Tzeentch psychic powers are generally pretty effective against them; owing to the generally low toughness and armour of most of their units, you can cause some fairly decent damage with the primaris power and eat through their heavier armoured units with Doombolt, Breath of Chaos etc. I'd recommend taking sorcerers/psykers in general against the Eldar, if only for the essential buffing and protection they can provide.

 

Don't underestimate anything; even Guardian squads, though they might not look like much on paper, can cause some serious damage when warlocks and their buffing powers get involved.

 

Pray to Slaanesh to devour their souls.

[Leif Bearclaw]

Fire Dragons got 18 inch melta guns.

 

No, they didn't, only the Exarch has the option of the 18' range Firepike, the Fusion Guns used by the normal dudes are only range 12'. Are you getting the Fusion Gun (Eldar) confused with the Fusion Blaster (Tau)? Cos that did go up to 18' range, because the Tau really needed that....

[khurdur]

thanks a lot for the advice!

 

I'll be taking a crimson slaughter sorceror with divination in 4 lascannon swaud of havocs to generally shoot down anything troublesome, and will try to rush their lines with 3 flying daemons, of which two will be lv 3 DPs with telepathy aiming for invis and puppet master, and with the land raider, 2 rhino squads and juggerlord nearby. turn 2 a squad of bloodletters and two five man squads of tzeentch termies with combi plasma to disrupt/break up their lines. 

And a solid firebase of the havocs and 6 oblits.

Oh and the obligatory heldrake.

 

I'm not sure about the marks on the daemon princes.One will have the black legion daemon weapon and the other the black mace(the juggerlord will get the axe of blfury). Both will have 2 rolls on telepathy (invisiblity on abby's land raider will be a beauty!) Mark of nurgle for shrouded against possible crimson hunters or lance shots, but no sweeping, or tzeentch for re-rolls of one against possible s4 torrent fire ?

[Trevak Dal]

 

Fire Dragons got 18 inch melta guns.

 

No, they didn't, only the Exarch has the option of the 18' range Firepike, the Fusion Guns used by the normal dudes are only range 12'. Are you getting the Fusion Gun (Eldar) confused with the Fusion Blaster (Tau)? Cos that did go up to 18' range, because the Tau really needed that....

 

 

I am.  And yes, they did.  If chaos is going to not get drop pods "To be different from Loyalists", Tau melta guns need to be "different from everyone else"

 

You should consider yourself lucky they aren't assault 2, or Salvo like they were rumored to be in play testing.

[Ammonius]

A 4,000 point battle? Are you using Escalation or Apocalypse? Be sure to get some pictures at deployment and post them here!

[Leif Bearclaw]

Fire Dragons got 18 inch melta guns.

No, they didn't, only the Exarch has the option of the 18' range Firepike, the Fusion Guns used by the normal dudes are only range 12'. Are you getting the Fusion Gun (Eldar) confused with the Fusion Blaster (Tau)? Cos that did go up to 18' range, because the Tau really needed that....

I am. And yes, they did. If chaos is going to not get drop pods "To be different from Loyalists", Tau melta guns need to be "different from everyone else"

You should consider yourself lucky they aren't assault 2, or Salvo like they were rumored to be in play testing.

Yeah, those Tau are so homgenous with the rest of the 40k range, if they didn't have 18' range meltas, they wouldn't play any different from Sisters .

And yes, assault 2 meltas on Crisis Suits would've been twisted as all hell. Fortunately the Tau only came out 100% twisted instead of 110% .

[daveNYC]

If you're playing at 4k does that mean that Titans are in play?  Because the best counter to a Revenant is a dreadsock to the junk.

 

I'd be worried about the Abaddon delivery package.  You're looking at 600 or 700 points tied up there (assuming he's riding with other termis), which is a big chunk of points even at 4k.  Hopefully the three flying DPs will buy it some time to roll forward and dump its cargo in a good spot.

[khurdur]

nah no apoc and no escalation....

well we played today, I lost to a wipe out. He played quite a balanced list, one wraithknight, a wraithlord, a few warwalkers, maugan ra, two farseers, a small mage council thing, two units of wraithguard, one with S10 and one with the ap2 flamers, a crimson hunter, some spiders, some swooping hawks, dire avenger that kind of stuff.

 

Well I played first, cast invisibility on the land raider, and rushed forward with everything. And then turn one 3 lances shots hit hte raider, penetrate, I roll one on the cover save and he blows it up. sadface.

 

I continue to cross the board, blew a few stuff up, a unit of reapers and a unit of wraithguard, and left the wraithknight with one wound. He shoots down the 'thirster, and the heldrake loses its baleflamer to a aegis quadgun the turn it goes in.

 

Later on, he charges my juggerlord and cultists with his wraithknight and almost kills him (managed to pass my invul), and Abby then charges and finished him. The final straw was when my black mace prince charges a big unit of 10 guardians with maugan ra, 2 farseers in cover and they manage to kill him before he swings.

 

the swooping hawks and spiders manage to clean up most of my backline. Anyway, it was a fun battle, I think two 300+ point DPs are over the top plus abby plus a thirster plus a sorc and juggerlord leaving me undermanned.

 

But I loved it! and bought myself a few spawn to form a unit with my juggerlord and sprint across the board..!

[Ammonius]

Well, at least you had fun :)

[minigun762]

Sounds like a good amount of unlikely rolls really hurt you.

[daveNYC]

Charging in on a Phoenix Lord and two Farseers in cover was properly cinematic at least.

 

It's nice he took a hodge-podge of stuff.

[khurdur]

yeah he had a good balanced farmy, not optimised...I had a few key dice faliling me like him dropping a shrouded raider in one turn and the poor drake losing its flamer, but perhaps my army had too few men on the board, I need to get a few more cultists to make a nuisance, or a 10 man fully decked out noise marine sqaud with 2x Blastmasters and sonic blasters would've done a number on any deepstrikers !

[Grey Mage]

Yeah, VS eldar bodies on the ground tends to be the order of the day, because saves just really dont exist unless the eldar player is doing something wrong.

[the jeske]

in general eldar armies don't realy have problems with dealing with meq and cultists class stuff. They do need a few turns to kill off 120+ zombis or if they do something odd [like runing a melee eldar list or something].

Odd thing with the eldar players  choice for  ally , normaly one expects to see deldar or tau [if ally are taken of course]. But in the end it is probably a good thing he took weak options , csm don't realy do much to normal eldar armies.