Help! getting butt handed to me by eldar

[GuardsmenBob]

Hello, I've been playing against eldar recently and have stomped

I like to play vet spam with tons of tanks, sometimes bring lord of war

Please help me make a fun list 2500 point list that isn't going to be destroyed out right

Thanks from Guardsman Bob

[Kierdale]

You've got to give us more intel before we can help you.

 

What kind of lists are you facing?

What are you fielding?

 

The more detail the better.

[librisrouge]

Without their lists we really can't offer much. The answer to Waveserpent spam isn't the same as Wraithknight spam. If they're psychically dominating you, we'll we have answers to that too.

 

What kind of pointy eared witches do you face?

[GuardsmenBob]

Usually I play with a space wolves player but the eldar players  usually bring a good mix of wave serpents, wraith units, and guardians with a avatars, plus jet bikes

 

Me, heres the list I brought last time

 

Pask

Punishers

Heavy Bolters

 

2 Demolishers

 

Temptus scions with hot shot volley guns

 

Melta Vets

Grenadiers

Chimera

 

Plasma Vets

Grenidiers

Chimera

 

3 vendettas

 

3 Leman Russ battle tanks

 

3 eradicators

 

and wyvren to fill out points

 

Melta vets

[GuardsmenBob]

To specify thier lists more

 One player if i can remember correctly

 

Farseer

Jetbike

 

Avatar

 

20 guardians support weapons warlocks

 

Guardian jet bikes

 

wraith guard

wave serpent

 

wraith guard

wave serpent

 

wraith guard with d scythes 

wave serpent

 

crimson hunter

 

3 war walkers

 

Falcon

Fire dragons

 

The other player brought

 

Farseer

 

20 guardians with support weapons

 

2 ranger squads

 

warp spiders

 

swooping hawks

 

2 wraith lords

 

wraith knight

 

that's all i can remember

[Thoqqu]

Aegis defence line, tanks behind cover are a lot more durable.

[WarriorFish]

What boring Eldars lists, but then we should expect no better from those depraved witches! At 2500 points the game gets skewed and plays different - elite armies such as Eldars can dial their units up to 11 and bring the crunch, squeezing a lot of capability in. That's not to say we don't benefit too of course, the high points value lets us make the most of our ability to field units. This is where the Guard's strength is and the Eldars weakness can be exploited.

 

If he brings the meanest units then give him cheap numbers; it's the perfect counter. The more points he spends on the unit the less efficient it becomes as he flails impotently against your greater numbers. Easier said than done though as you can't just flood the board as you need to retain effectiveness and mobility.

 

A load of Chimeras would be great, those multilasers and heavy bolters could put out a lot of shots and help protect your troops which you could do with some more of (as well as capture themselves). The Eradicators are good to blast his troops away but I'm not sure you need three, cheap as they are? How much do your Vendettas achieve, it might be better to drop their number to get more units on the table to start with. Some Hellhound or Sentinel use could help, for example Devildog or Banewolf quick attacks or outflanking Sentinels to blast rear armour with autocannon fire?

 

Demolishers might not be a great tank against the nimble xenos, if they're not too effective maybe an Exterminator or two to blast their skimmers from the skies could help?

[Kierdale]

I'd definitely want some outflanking scout sentinels in there for rear-armour shots.

Wyverns are always good, particularly against anything with camo cloaks/jink/other cover saves.

 

Deep striking a lot of minimum sized scion squads with melta guns would do for a few of his tanks, and leave thorns in his rear (not big thorns, but ones that need dealing with nonetheless).

 

I also like WarriorFish's advice of countering him with numbers.

 

EDIT: I think Coffee had recent experience of using Banewolves against Eldar.

[Kilofix]

Vs:

• Wraithguard
• Wraithlord
• Wraithknight

....all with T6 - T8 and and 3+

use Militarum Tempestus with MT's Suppression Doctrine (not from the AM Codex but from the MT Codex). It gives them Wound on 4+ with Sniper, and ignores their Armor Save with Hot-Shot's AP3.

 

Otherwise, use  Ratling Snipers or Guard Special Weapon Snipers and hope for Rending.

Only problem with Banewolf (only probelem with Banewolf is it only does 1 hit against a multi-hit MC).

 

 

Vs:

• WaveSerpents / other Skimmers
• JetBikes

Use AutoCannon Heavy Weapon Squads and give them the Fire on My Target Order for Ignores Cover.

 

 

Use Tanks to screen some of the above. For the other opposing units - just drown them in fire. Wyverns are good agains the regular guardians.

[march10k]

You're fielding three veteran squads and two chimeras as your entire complement of troops at 2500 points?  That's your problem.  Properly built, IG's troops are a strength, not a weakness.  And I'm not talking about the blob of 50 men with a priest to make them fearless, either.

 

65 points for a chimera...it's amazingly cheap for an AV12 superscorer with two heavy weapons....spam the hell out of those!  Personally, I take them as transports for forward sentries with autocannons (80 points a squad) and decide at deployment time how many squads will sit in their tanks and shoot from the hatch versus how many will deploy in cover and shoot from there while the tanks roll around empty (obviously, if the autocannon is in the hatch, the opportunity cost for moving is dramatically higher!).  I have been known to field six of those 145 point sets in an 1850 game, although 4-5 is more common.  Spamming chimeras and supplementing that by also spamming sentinels is pure evil, it completely overloads your opponent's ability to kill vehicles.  Even better, his weapons that can hurt AV14 now have to be at least briefly considered for transport-popping duty instead!

 

The other huge problem with your list is that you have way too many heavies for a single FOC.  I've been known to field a squadron of two...but multiple squadrons of three proper tanks is insanely inefficient...three battle cannons are going to kill less than twice as much as a single battle cannon, forget three times as much!

 

Without making too many changes to the list, you really need to do the following:

 

1.  Get more troops choices in there...at least four total (assuming also four chimeras, otherwise more troops!), so that you can:

 

2.  Get a second HQ.  This could be an additional tank commander, but it doesn't have to be...if you're going this heavilly mechanized, you probably don't benefit from a CCS, so your cop-out would be a lord commissar to go with a veteran squad.  This unlocks:

 

3.  Split up those tanks!  The wyverns can certainly be in a squadron, but three separate LRBTs will be DRAMATICALLY more effective than a single squadron of three.  If you really need to, you can still shoot them all at the same target...but you get to assess the results of each pieplate before declaring the target of the next one!

 

 

Additional advice:

 

1.  I love eradicators...but three is at least one more than you need, and they kind of do the same thing as the wyverns.  I would cut one eradicator...and then cut either another one, or cut the wyverns.  You've over-committed to cover-denying blast weapons.  Those points are needed elsewhere...badly!

 

2.  The second FOC gives you three more fast attack slots.  Normally, I would advocate for some hellhounds, but the eradicators and wyverns fill that role adequately.  What you do need, though, is some sentinels...either outflanking scouts with multilasers (since they're virtually guaranteed to shoot at AV10) or armored sentinels with autocannons, which will not only give you their shooting and compete with the transports for enemy attention, they're a FANTASTIC tarpit...for example, a common bit of daemon cheese is 20 flesh hounds of khorne...they have to run away from armored sentinels because they can't hurt them in melee, and they also can't "our weapons are useless" their way out of assault if they do get tarpitted.

 

3.  You can probably get by with two vendettas.  Vendettas and Demolishers are two of the best things in our codex, so I'm very reluctant to advocate dropping one...but if you need the points to get a more balanced list...

 

4.  Dump the stormtroopers...I love them to death, in fact I have 35 of them and four valkyries to fly them around in...but they're ridiculously uncompetitive.  If you're losing games, they need to go away so you can spend the points on something that works...honestly, they don't do anything that demolishers and vendettas don't do better.

 

I would probably strip out one of pask's wingmen, then make another tank commander out of that wingman with an eradicator for his wingman, drop the other two eradicators, split the three LRBT into separate FOC slots, drop one vendetta and all the stormtroopers, and spend all those points on a combination of mechanized veterans and sentinels.  Gives you more vehicles, more superscorers, more infantry, and more efficient shooting with your pieplates.  What you lose is mainly redundant cover-ignoring shooting and the cool-but-sucky stormtroopers.

[TankCommanderWittmann]

 

The other huge problem with your list is that you have way too many heavies for a single FOC.  I've been known to field a squadron of two...but multiple squadrons of three proper tanks is insanely inefficient...three battle cannons are going to kill less than twice as much as a single battle cannon, forget three times as much!

 

I found this entire post very informative as a new Guard player starting a tank army, but this part really stuck out to me and tied in to something that I feel probably at least addresses most of the points in your post:  If running tank heavy, shoud one just play unbound?

 

Also I agree strongly, OP, that you are spamming too many of the same tank.  We have like 15 variants, you shouldn't (imo) have more than 2 of any variant (except Chimerae and perhaps the LRBT) before you have 1 of each.  I've already made this mistake 4 tanks in!  The more different tanks you have, with different roles, the easier it is at the beginning of the game to give each one a specific mission for the battle (another reason to go unbound). 

 

Unbound single tanks working as their own individual units, in my very limited experience, always outperform squadrons.

 

I know some people don't like unbound, but from what I've seen, it's kind of necessary for a tank company.  Having three different variants in one squadron is pointless if they all have to shoot at the same thing.  And 3 LRBT's, like March10k said, won't make that squad of guardians any more dead. 

 

Also, March, with what you said about spamming Sentinels, could that work wth Taurox Primes?  Just spam empty TPs as fast attack choices?   Again, in an unbound army.  LIke 6-8 of these little guys with a mix of weapons can zoom around and do all sorts of annoying stuff.  And sure, they don't have Ob Sec but they can still score!

[CoffeeGrunt]

The only Leman Russ I run in pairs is the Demolisher or Battle Tank, due to their versatility. None of the others really give good returns, and no tank is good in a trio IMO.

[Castellan Blackmane]

The only Leman Russ I run in pairs is the Demolisher or Battle Tank, due to their versatility. None of the others really give good returns, and no tank is good in a trio IMO.

Agree with you there in my limited experience.

 

On a side note is your picture a Tau cowboy or a... Tauboy? *Sniggering*

[CoffeeGrunt]

It's Cad Bane from the Clone Wars series. That show is excellent, but worth watching for his appearances alone.

[GuardsmenBob]

this has been really helpful

 

thanks from Guardsmen bob

[march10k]

 

 

The other huge problem with your list is that you have way too many heavies for a single FOC.  I've been known to field a squadron of two...but multiple squadrons of three proper tanks is insanely inefficient...three battle cannons are going to kill less than twice as much as a single battle cannon, forget three times as much!

 

I found this entire post very informative as a new Guard player starting a tank army, but this part really stuck out to me and tied in to something that I feel probably at least addresses most of the points in your post:  If running tank heavy, shoud one just play unbound?

 

Also I agree strongly, OP, that you are spamming too many of the same tank.  We have like 15 variants, you shouldn't (imo) have more than 2 of any variant (except Chimerae and perhaps the LRBT) before you have 1 of each.  I've already made this mistake 4 tanks in!  The more different tanks you have, with different roles, the easier it is at the beginning of the game to give each one a specific mission for the battle (another reason to go unbound). 

 

Unbound single tanks working as their own individual units, in my very limited experience, always outperform squadrons.

 

I know some people don't like unbound, but from what I've seen, it's kind of necessary for a tank company.  Having three different variants in one squadron is pointless if they all have to shoot at the same thing.  And 3 LRBT's, like March10k said, won't make that squad of guardians any more dead. 

 

Also, March, with what you said about spamming Sentinels, could that work wth Taurox Primes?  Just spam empty TPs as fast attack choices?   Again, in an unbound army.  LIke 6-8 of these little guys with a mix of weapons can zoom around and do all sorts of annoying stuff.  And sure, they don't have Ob Sec but they can still score!

 

 

Well...No, unbound comes with serious penalties.  If you want to spam tanks, four mechanized veteran squads are never a terrible thing to field, and it gets you four more light tanks anyway, right?  Not having any "objective secured" units is crippling, and there's really no reason not to put four of your tanks into HQ (probably one of them as pask?) and then have six FOC slots for the rest of them.  That allows for a minimum of 10 leman russ hulls, and even in a tank heavy list, I can't see you fitting more than that in...

 

Well...I agree in principle, but with the caveat that not every variant is particularly useful.  The Executioner doesn't really do anything that the demolisher can't do better, for example...and an exterminator only has weapons that you can get elsewhere, like on infantry squads, sentinels, and chimeras.  And the only good vanquisher is a pasquisher (and it's VERY good!).  But there is probably a great case to be made for having two LRBTs, 2 demolishers, 2 eradicators, and, yeah, I guess two punishers, too, before you get a third one of any variant.

 

Well....yes and no...sentinels are cheaper, sentinels have a WS value (gives them tarpitting potential that TPs lack), and sentinels have AV12.  But if you just care about spamming heavy weapons on a mobile platform, yeah, I guess...

 

 

 

The only Leman Russ I run in pairs is the Demolisher or Battle Tank, due to their versatility. None of the others really give good returns, and no tank is good in a trio IMO.

 

I do find a pair (never a trio) of LRBTs to be effective, rolling ones to wound or scattering badly, it can be so maddening!  Also, S8 is not the be-all-to-end-all, lots of stuff out there with T5+ and multiple wounds, and some stuff with T7+, too...

 

Not so much with demolishers, though...too much potential to waste awesome killing potential.  T5 is fairly common, T6+ is fairly uncommon, so that S10 is much deadlier, and almost nothing escapes "anything but a one" wounding!  I definitely run them in pairs, but as separate singletons...that gives me the option to reengage the target or choose a different one, based on the outcome of the first shot.