AM vs Craftworld Eldar. Help Needed Please!

[*CAPTAIN*]

Happy New Year Generals.

 

I have a 2,000 point game coming up soon and am about to face Craftworld Eldar for the first time!

 

I have been searching various forums on the best way to tackle them, they seem to have almost everything at their disposal!

 

I am stuck with the type of army to go far, I love playing Mech, I love fielding mass Leman Russ Tanks, Mech Vets followed up by multiple Vendettas, this is fun for me and I have been successful. The problem is, I am not sure this army will stand up against Eldar, My opponent will bring to the table a wraith knight, scat bikes, prism tanks, swooping hawks, warp spiders, Dark Reapers, Wraith Guard & Crimson hunters, there will be some psykers in there too. 

 

With the amount of D they can now bring and the amount of shots his bikes can put out, I'm not sure My army will last, I have considered footslogging, as he will expect a lot of tanks, but the bikes, spiders and hawks could murder them!

 

The format of our game is basically a fight to the death, the person with the most points after 6 turns wins!

 

Does anyone here have much experience facing Craftworld Eldar with AM, what problems did you face and how did you overcome them? Do you have any advice for me?

[L30n1d4s]

I think you cannot go wrong with an Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company formation.

 

You get a CCS/Chimera, two batteries of Basilesks, Wyverns, or Hydras and one Deathstrike or Manticore, plus a mandatory Enginseer.

 

The kicker is that the CCS can issue Orders (Ignore Cover, Split Fire, or Pinning) to the artillery units from this formation, so you can have Ignore Cover Basilesks or Pinning Wyverns, etc.

 

Almost any of these options would do well against Eldar, since they shred their infantry and tanks alike.

 

-Basilesks kill Jetbikes, Wraithguard and Skimmers

-Hydras kill Skimmers and Flyers

-Wyverns kill Aspect Warriors and Jetbikes

-Manticores kill light infantry and Skimmers

-Deathstrike kill everything

 

About the only thing you will struggle with is Wraithknights (and a Plasma CCS with Psychic Shriek Astropath can help a lot against that)

[*CAPTAIN*]

Thats Great Frater sounds like great advice.

 

The thought of Ignore cover Basilisks sounds amazing!

 

Where can i find this formation? Our codex is now a bit outdated and doesn't contain any!

[WarriorFish]

It's in the new Mont'ka book, sounds like you'll be up against a tough army. The trick with Eldars is to play your own game and not to get dragged into theirs. You're not going to beat them on mobility and fancy tricks so stick to what Guard do best. Make sure you have the units to weather the storm and still return the favour, and as mentioned bring the heaviest of weaponry and do all you can to make sure it is effective.

 

Cover ignoring Basilisks will be great of course, but a high target especially as it's just a CCS that needs to be removed to stop it. Take a few units to counter the aspect warriors Wyverns and also Eradicators will shred them nicely allowing you to concentrate on the bigger stuff. Some plasma (on Vets for example) to help put additional wounds on things like Wraithknights would be good but with 2000pts you have a lot to play with so don't be afraid to experiment with the big hitters of our own like the Deathstrike.

 

Do you have any objectives at all? Or will it just be victory points? It won't be an easy game so be sure to play the objectives right from the start :tu:

[duz_]

Sounds like fixed turn kill points works perfectly to guards strengths

 

So like what the others said do what guard does best

 

Static gun line :-)

 

The wraiths (of all kinds are simple enough) they're only 3+ so plasma spam and punisher pask w/ plasmacutioner make short work of them too

 

ADL wouldn't hurt to protect your guardsmen just don't bunch them to close because of the mass templates the wraithguard can bring

 

Tbh I don't find eldar that scary yes their book is good but not invincible

[wulfgar hammerfist]

Eldar are a tough opponent for just about everyone. Ignores cover basilisks are nice but that formation is expensive. I like the heavy artillery carriages better since they have a toughness value instead of armor and you can give them orders from a normal CCS. You will need to protect your arty so a fortification comes in handy. I'd go with an ADL or a VSG. The Eldar are very tricksy so you'll need to watch your flanks. Maybe a couple of conscript squads to line your flanking board edges to protect from crap like outflanking war walkers and hornets. The Swooping Hawks are a big threat to your mechanized and flyer units so I would try to kill them early on. Their skyleap ability can be annoying.

[greycat]

The thing is eldar are quite fragile. Once you actually put fire on a unit it will go down fast. Even wraithguard only have a 3+ save and T6, guess what we have easy access to? Battlecannon str8 ap3.

 

Hawks will drop to anything and once they have less than 6 members their sky attack is less useful. Dont bother shooting warp spiders if they are near line of sight blocking terrain, its a waste of shots. They will simply use their flickerjump and you will waste shots.

 

The main thing will be taking out any psykers quickly if possible. They are a massive force multiplyer.

 

Focus fire on one thing at a time. There is no point in taking a few wounds off one thing and a few hull points off something else. Remove whole threats at a time.

 

Brightlances and D will go straight through our armour so try and get some cover saves and dont forget the tank order fire & shroud.

 

We definitely have enough shooting to deal with them, the hard part is staying alive long enough. If at the end of the day you do lose just remember that guard can afford to sacrifice an army while eldar cannot ;)

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Eradicators will negate the bikes pretty well, with the ignores cover blast. You also have the ignores cover order, so you can give any unit that can take orders ignores cover which will be powerful for wiping out bikes or cover camping units.

 

Use Bassies to pummel his psykers from turn 1. Or go ham and take a hellhammer for instant jetbike/cover camper death. 

[CommissarZac]

I recommend spamming Leman russes.   For 1500 points I can field 7 leman russes, 3 punishers with pask, 3 vanquishers and a demolisher.  The punishers will make short work of the bikes and troops, while the vanquishers will wipe out other armor andthe demolisher will wreck face of enyone who wants to get close.  and with 500 points to spare you can add some wyverns, hydras, hellhounds etc.

[march10k]

Much is made of how lance weapons cap AV at 12...thing is, how many lance weapons will they have?  They're still glancing on fours, yet we freak out and compare it to meltas at close range, which it's not.  Don't be afraid to field your normal tank complement.  You don't need to go overboard and spam bonus tanks in some mad craze of saturating them with targets to ensure that some tanks survive.  I normally field 5-6 tanks in an all-comers list.  Against eldar, I'd field...5-6 tanks.  If they have 3-4 lances scattered about, no problem, That's maybe one dead tank per turn.  Thing is, other armies do as much, and worse, with deepstriking melta, various bike tricks, jinking nurgle FMCs, and whatnot.  I don't get why we're extra scared of lances.  In the extreme, they could be spammed...so could podding melta sternguard.   So don't worry about it.  As has been said, just execute your plan, don't let worrying about what they might field in a worst-case scenario trick you into a sub-optimal list.  Fear is the mind-killer!

 

Some things to consider fielding against eldar:

 

1)  Outflanking scout sentinels.  Great for bypassing serpent shields.  Take multilasers, you want more shots and should be targeting AV10.

 

2)  Skyshield landing pad firing platform.  Put three tanks on top with a squadron of wyverns behind and you have a lot less to worry about in terms of keeping your firepower alive.

 

3)  Valkyries.  I haven't run into credible eldar air defenses, and 1-2 valkyries with rocket pods are great for countering eldar mobility both in terms of getting your own troops around the battlefield and in terms of pieplating them without allowing "intervening unit/terrain" cover saves.

 

4) STORMTROOPERS!!!!  Forget marines.  Hellguns were made to kill aspect warriors.  They cost more than marines, by and large, but they're T3!  This combines well with valkyries...Since the eldar way is highly specialized units and the stormtrooper way is to identify the one unit the enemy can't win without, then kill it, it's a match made in heaven.

[Kilofix]

Also did anyone mention Helhounds?

 

Maybe Stormhammer too lol.

 

Use Plasma against Wraithknight. Deepstriking Scion Command can take 4 Plasma. Use Prefered Enemy or Twin Linked orders to get around Gets Hot.

[WarriorFish]

You forgot the next step Kilo: collect delicious eldars tears :P

[*CAPTAIN*]

Wow cheers for the tips guys, you are totally right, I shouldn't be worrying about what he may/may not be bringing, should concentrate on my own army and plan.

 

I will be seeing up the board as it is on my home turf, plenty of cover me thinks for my heavy hitters and to try and even the balance against there cover saves.

Barriers between deployment zones to make it difficult to get to me, pummel them from afar with artillery while they're nice and bunched up, once they're close Pask and friends can take over!

 

Solid core of plasma vets and two hellhounds to help mop up anything that comes down the flanks.

For the psyker I'm thinking wyverns can help with this, as i believe wounds are taken closest to each blast which makes picking him out all the easier.

 

Feel a lot more optimistic about the game now, if it doesn't work out at least i'll have fun pummelling the space elves and doing my bit for mankind!

 

Re Warrior fish, we play a little different, no victory points at all, is literally the guy who takes the most unit points at the end, so if I take 1,500 points of his army and he takes 1,400 of mine I win, a bit old school but we've been playing since 3rd edition and it's nice to have a bludgeoning match every now and again!!

[WarriorFish]

Barrage weapons calculate cover from the centre of the (first) blast, but don't worry about cover saves against Wyvern attacks as they have the Ignores Cover special rule

Ah, so you play the old Victory Points - a system I prefer to Kill Points Guard or not As I've said before don't forget the most important battle is already won - in army choice

[BassWave]

I'm very skeptical over how well plasma vets will do against the WK. You only wound on 5+, then it has fnp, and it probably has it's toe in cover.

 

Psychic shriek isn't a bad idea, but WKs have high leadership. The power's effectiveness also relies on how many psykers the Eldar player is bringing.

 

Lascannon teams with prescience and the order "fire on my target" would help against the WK and any vehicles the opponent brings.

[Aethyran]

If you like to bring allies, may i suggest the Cult Mechanicus. Two beefy units of Kataprhon Destroyers with a naked Tech Priest Dominus help you immensely against the WK. 

[march10k]

meh...just slam a knight-lancer into the WK...