well, your on the right track. the general mantra for fighting eldar is "catch them outside of their specific element". its good that your infiltrating. cover wont be important in assaults, considering that the harlequins will prolly come w/ plasma grenades, but it will be nice if his lord(s) are packing any AP2 weaps.

basically, focus the bolters on the harlies. sure, their save is invulnerable, but lets face it.... its 5+. hes gonna fail a lot of em. try to keep some sort of keep the command squad as a counterattack unit close by just in case some harlies get close.

basically, just focus your devs and termies on the walkers 1st. theyre easy, w/ 10 all around (las will penetrate on 2+....) just pop em real easy. kill all locks you see as well, so that the lords have to test for wraithsight. after walkers and locks are dead, go after his HQ (which you didnt seem to mention...) itll prolly be an autarch of some type. just curbstomp it w/ the A cannons WHILE the devs focus on the lord(s). more or less, the fight consists of your tacs and cmd squad holding its ground, while your devs and termies kill walkers ---> locks ---> lord(s) AND HQ @ the same time. hypothetically speaking, you should chew him up. As a side note, on the off chance that he fields wraithGUARD.... they are to be killed 1st @ all costs by yur devs and termies. the guns they have (AP2, automatically wounds on 2+, regardless of T) will rip you apart. in addition, his locks that can stop the test for wraithsight can join the wraiths. Pretty much, however, this should be pretty much cut-and-dried. FYI: he'll prolly realize the threat that your devs are, so make sure that you put them in the best cover save possible, since he'll prolly direct his heaviest weaps @ you.

im not going to lie however, im not really experienced fighting eldar. this is all theorycrafting. please, if anyone is more experienced than myself, feel free to b*tchslap my hypothetical plan into the ground.

EDIT:i just noticed he is/might have avengers. under NO circumstances should u let the Avenger Exarch hit (or choose to take a wound from him on) your captain. it has a nasty psecial rule where whoever he hits w/ his power weap (doesnt matter on 1 wound models) has to pass a Ld test. if he fails, he gets ID'ed irrespective of adamantine mantles, etc. also, it *might* be prudent to look into investing in a land raider crusader, w/ the amount of shots it can pump out, its bound to hurt something @ 12".

EDIT2: his walkers all have the "scouts" special rule that lets him take a "free" move (6") anywhere AFTER infiltration but BEFORE rolling to see who goes 1st. it's reccomended to set up somewhere more than 1-2 turns' worth of movement away from him AFTER he does his free move. unfortunately, it isnt affected by an auspex . it wouldve been killer to be able to get a bunch of lascannon shots off on him before the game started

 

It looks to be a tough battle for you but you are on the right track. I would try and pack as much firepower into your army and use Infiltrate to not get closer to your opponent but rather set up a refused flank.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the advice, few more things that're troubling me

How should i use the dread? never really used them but found myself at odds point wise so thought i'd add him, thinking of dropping him in behind and just targetting the warwalkers... maybe i can even get a wraithlord to turn around and chase me or a unit of harlies to pull back (apparantly his war walkers are mainly anti infantry, scatter lasers i think, maybe even a few star cannons). Any other possible uses vs this force?

Secondly i hear that he likes to fully upgrade his harlies (everything but the death jester) and i hear shadowseers make harlies hard to shoot down.. how else can i deal with them? or will i just have to wait for them to get close?

As for HQ i have a sneaking suspicion it'll be a lone farseer with guide/doom sitting behind the lords, doesn't seem like there's much i could do against it, any ideas on this problem?

 

Hey guys, thanks for the advice, few more things that're troubling me

How should i use the dread? never really used them but found myself at odds point wise so thought i'd add him, thinking of dropping him in behind and just targetting the warwalkers... maybe i can even get a wraithlord to turn around and chase me or a unit of harlies to pull back (apparantly his war walkers are mainly anti infantry, scatter lasers i think, maybe even a few star cannons). Any other possible uses vs this force?

Secondly i hear that he likes to fully upgrade his harlies (everything but the death jester) and i hear shadowseers make harlies hard to shoot down.. how else can i deal with them? or will i just have to wait for them to get close?

As for HQ i have a sneaking suspicion it'll be a lone farseer with guide/doom sitting behind the lords, doesn't seem like there's much i could do against it, any ideas on this problem?

like i mentioned earlier, i suggest you keep the dread near your devs because you want to keep them out of CC. in hindsight, however, doo keep in mind that with a atks and s10, he needs 3+ to penetrate....

as for the shadowseer, its power is 2d6x2. so, as long as your within rapidfire, it shouldnt be a prob.

now, reviewing the farseer, it seems that he will be tailored almost exclusively to help the walkers. reroll on wounds, and reroll on failed shots. so he'll be running around in between the walkers, i would suggest you whack him.

also, i was operating under the assumption that the list you posted WAS the list you were going to play with. if you have some flexibility, then by all means, go for some land speeders. just be carefull, becasue they all have AV10.

 

If he is cheezing out with harlies, war walkers, and wraithlords you should just cheese back with three venrable dreadnaughts with assault cannons. They are about as hard to take down as wraithlords. Or go with a squad of 3 lst. If that squad got the right angle on a squad of unsupported war walkers they could take all 3 down in a turn probably.

 

Don't take ven dreads, they will get scrapped way to early. My advice is to load up on as many heavy bolters as you can - they eat eldar like nothing. Chuck in a few landspeeders as well (tornados are nasty).
Other than that, load up on tac squads. Harlies can be quite difficult to shoot outside 18" (think it may be 24 - i don't use them) and they have a possible charge range of 18". (6 + fleet + 6). Best bet against them would be rapid firing with everything or trying to peg them with a couple of speeders (get up close early on).
Don't concern yourself with Dire Avengers - he can only take a diresword (think force weapon) and shuriken pistol as one of his options - the more common is 2 shuriken catapults and bladestorm - use heavy bolters to take them down with ease.
Wraithlords can be tough to take down and provide good anti-tank support. Don't charge them into close combat instead try to hit them with plasma guns or lascannons - anything that can ignore their save and has a reasonably good chance of wounding a t8 critter.
Warwalkers - while throwing out a huge number of shots with scatter lasers are only AV10 so pretty much everything in your army has the ability to take them down.

 

Have to agree with the Landspeeders, there is no doubt that you will annoy an eldar player with a quick moving Assault cannon and Heavy bolters. They are one of the fun ways to deal with Harlies... get up close and unload 7 shots into them and watch their effectivness drop. I also like Land Speeders generally against Eldar as it gives yourself some speed of your own something that Eldar has a lot of.

 

Hey all thanks for the advice, Iron legion is right sadly, i have no/very little flexibility in my list (really wish i had some land speeders).

Question is what other ways are there to deal with harlies? was thinking of sacrificing a unit to them (ensuring nothing else is within 6") so they can wipe it out in that turn and leave themselves in rapid fire range of 3 other squads.. would it work?

 

Question is what other ways are there to deal with harlies? was thinking of sacrificing a unit to them (ensuring nothing else is within 6") so they can wipe it out in that turn and leave themselves in rapid fire range of 3 other squads.. would it work?

I see no reason why you should have to sacrifice anyone, Brother. As far as I can see your opponent has no transports - if he had Wave Serpents then that would make things a whole lot more difficult for you.

In essence *all* you have to do is keep away from him and shoot him down. There's no way he's going to shoot you to death; but be wary of the Dire Avengers 18" range and bladestorm - with that many likely shots/hits/wounds you're bound to fail some AS. To beat you he'll have to get into HTH with you - if he can't do that he won't win. Use infiltrate not to get closer but to place your troops as far away from his best HTH stuff (which happens also to have the worst save against your bolters) and just keep shooting.

As has been said, heavy bolters cut through Eldar like a scythe through wheat and you should take these if you have any. It's a pity you don't have any snipers since they can make short work on any Wraithlords. I'd also be tempted to forget the Dread's drop pod and say that it is a Fire Support Dread with TL LC and ML - that will give you more anti WW and WL capability.

Use your ranged stuff to take out his ranged stuff - like his warwalkers - and then just keep on shooting. I've played Eldar for years and I wouldn't want to take on a Space Marine army without transports, it's just far too costly. The bolter is a vastly underrated weapon and is devastating at close range.

Do you have to take your Termies?? For their cost I think another tac squad would be more useful since it's volume of fire you're looking to get.

Scale down on "nice to have" upgrades such as the apothecary and champion - for their base cost alone you can get 3 more tac marines ... ... ..

If you have the figures, I'd try and get as many bolter-armed marines as you can. Bolters, bolters and yet more bolters! Apart from the WWs and WL (which your heavy weapons should make short work of - and even your bolters can glance the WWs) it's the bolters that are going to win the day for you.

However, if you do end up getting into HTH, I think you'll probably lose. Not definitely, but probably. You're not going to win by going toe-to-toe - so stay away and keep jabbing away. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised (as your opponent will be unpleasantly surprised) at how quickly Eldar fade away in the face of concentrated bolter fire - like blossom in the breeze .. .. ..

~ Ravenscraig ~

 

Hey Thane, went solid victory to me, though i did have a slightly unfair advantage.. escalation this is *roughly* what he had:

Farseer on jetbike

The avatar (honestly didn't see that comming)

20 harlies

20 guardians w/t warlocks

10 hawks

3 wraithlords

porbably more guardians and a few other bits

His phalanx fell apart when the giant MC wall had to start in reserve... i managed to setup quite a nice refused flank (i won the roll to choose sides and picked the one with the giant impassible terrain down the middle) and he ran into bolter fire.. the harlies got a bit of combat but the squads they hit were abandoned and they found themselves in rapid fire range the turn after (this is how both dev squads dies) did mean i had to bring down 2 wraithlords with P fist wielding vets though.. not TO tough.

Thanks for all the advice guys i mean... probably saved me a pretty bad loss.

 

no problem, we're all glad we could help. in addition to me congratulating you for killing a bunch of xenos scum, im also glad that you curbstomped him from a personal perspective (i remember you mentioning earlier in the thread that you said this guy really deserved it.) Kudos to you, you've earned it.