Novakane
Registered User
(4/18/02 10:14:56 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del All A mature anti-eldar thread, please post your tactics here. Hello fellow 40k fanatics!
I am posting this with the simple goal of gaining new insight from experienced players on how to deal with the eldar.I have fought 2 kinds;the mobile shooty, and the static shooty and have been creamated by both.I play a shooty army myself(Ultras), but i think that i can learn more here than i can on the GW message board as you cant have a conversation there on the eldar without name calling and everyone yelling cheese!
I dont think the problem is with the rules and i have supreme faith that the members of this board have tried and proven methods of defeating those space geeks.(Sorry i had to.)BTW dont worry about specific tactics, or army lists to take im asking for help for a tourney in which ill have to be using the same list throughout.Just post general tactics that you have found to work.
Ill start us off with my one good tactic to date;Take a whirlwind.Its str and blast marker when it hits(and it will at some point) make it the perfect Eldar killer.
Thanks! and wish me well this saturday in the tourney.

BloodAngelBrotherEdward
ezOP
(4/19/02 6:48:58 am)
Reply | Edit | Del
<http://www.dragonrealm.com/exlibrismortis/P2090005Helmet_close3r.jpg> :-) Hey there Novakane :-)

Welcome to the deep end of the pool! This seems to be where the veteran BA players come to talk business [:)] And you won't find any flameposts here - I'll delete them on sight, and ban the offended - problem solved [:)]

So - let's talk about how to fight the Eldar.... I've taken the liberty of copying an article you may have already read - for it discusses my tactics for fighting Eldar (well any shooty army for that matter), but the tactics are the best I've developed for that situation.... here they are...

A Personal Overview
Blood Angels Assault Tactics

The Blood Angels are an extremely powerful army (as is any Space Marine army), but even we have our difficulties, difficulties which are shared by all assault armies.

The classic weakness for all assault themed 40k armies is our inherent weakness to shooting - by devoting so much of our emphasis to assault capability we're inherently vulnerable to shooty armies. There are tricks to compensating for this of course, but a well played shooty army can be a true nightmare for Blood Angels - a great example of this would be Eldar. The Eldar's ability to have strong mobile firepower (with long range and low AP) can be disasterous to an unprepared BA army. Our answer to this lies in our deployment, movement, and to some extent our unit choices. What is for certain is that the BA want to hit the Eldar with our assaults (we want to hit EVERYONE withour assaults eventually!), but against a seriously shooty army our glorious assault elements have to live long enough to reach the enemy first!

The first step to succeed is to deploy behind cover (unless you KNOW you will get first turn - some scenarios grant you this), deploying behind cover saves a fair bit of immediate death to enemy firing (why expose your people to firing unless it can;t be avoided?).

The second step of this process is to keep your whole group together in such a way that your army covers itself - think of it as "can everyone see everybody?". If you do this, and stay behind cover as you advance toward the Eldar positions what you've accomplished is this - any Eldar vehicle which moves around to shoot at you will most likley be destroyed in your next turn by the rest of your army who now has a clear line of sight on the fould Eldar. Sounds simplistic I know, but trust me there are plenty of practical difficulties in carrying this out for real.

The third aspect is just as important as the other two, but how far you carry this is a matter of your personal taste (different situations call for different approaches), but here goes... The third aspect involves your army list - you need to go ahead and take a dedicated assault element (in my experience a full third of the army is often dedicated to assault), the seond third is often spent on mobile tac squads who have a multi-task role, they have tha flexibility to provide excellent defensive power for when your people need to sit still (for whatever reason) but their mobility allows them to keep up with your assault element and ideally they will be able to assault adjacent units to eitheror both sides of where your assault teams hit - if your tac squad transports get whacked just shy of the target it still works for you - for now you have a large tac squad right in the middle of things who can shoot all over the place, and perhaps even walk forward and still get into the assaults as a second wave.... but I still haven't come tot he really important part - the shooty power. Blood Angel armies usually lack shooty power and they really need to at least acknowledge this so they can make their plans knowing this weakness - but a clever BA commander can find it extremely useful to take about a third of their points worth of good long range shooty power (best if it is mobile). Try taking a small Devastator Squad and put them in a razorback with twin linked lascannons, take this and a speeder with multimelta (maybe two) and see how many points you have left over - ideally you've already equipped your tac squads with some vehicle killing power as well - but if your force has shooty power like this you have suddenly become MUCH more able to deter lighthearted shooting attacks on your forces, for whatever they stick out there to shoot at you (and they may kill one or two things) you've almost guaranteed that you're going to kill it the next turn. Now sure you can't maintain this exchange for long - but you don't have to, remember your army is an assault army which is constantly on the move toward the enemy (albeit behind cover) so in all liklihood you will only be on the move for one or two turns - which means this whole plan of exchanging shooty casualties will only happen for one or two turns IF the bad guys are goofy enough to send people out to their deaths....

The final stage of this should hit on your turn two or three - you've approached the enemy line, your forces are still behind cover for the most part - and this turn your movement will get you into charge range - this is the time to move your whole army at one time from behind cover into full view of the enemy and assault - your units which can move and shoot effectively need to focus on their shooting units - your assault people need to decide (depending on their strength) whether they wish to weaken the units they are about to assault (be careful you don't deny yourself the assault by killing off the models nearest you!) or if they want to spend their shooting at some other more pressing target (ideally kill off the most shooty thing you can) - the rest of it is very straightforward, your assault units get into it, your remaining shooty units continue to engage the remaining enemy shooty targets and proceed to next most pressing/available targets as long as possible.

Sometimes though it's not possible to find a place where you can approach the enemy and remain behind cover the whole time until contact - try to avoid this if you can, I'm not saying use your magical powers to reshape the available cover but I AM saying make the best use of cover that you can!) so anyway, if you don't have enough cover to really protect your people then you really don't have much choice, it's likely going to force you to rush him as fast as possible - try to keep your people together (so their firing can protect each other as we discussed earlier) and also because when you move your whole group together as a whole like that it messes with the enemy shooting - think of it as "target overload", sure they can see everything - but it's not likely that they can kill everything in a turn or two, and even then you have that whole "screening units" thing going for you :-) LOTS of different tricks are possible along these lines, but this is really a last resort approach - do your best to work with the existing terrain to approach your opponent taking minimal casualties to shooting, and make them pay for coming out to shoot you :-)

Wow - I've said a lot here... but these same general tactics can be applied to any shooty army (Tau, IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar) and all of them will break beneath the crushing power of your assault - IF you can get your assault elements into contact quickly, focus on minimizing your casualties to shooting through use of cover and defensive supporting fire and it will make things easier :-)

There are other problem areas for BA - but death by shooty armies is one of the hardest to beat - the advice I've given here is the best I've been able to come up with after three years of playing :-)


Whew! that's a lot to digest! But I hope it will be helpful my brothers!

Gloty to the Emperor and Sanguinius ~ Brother Edward


<http://www.dragonrealm.com/exlibrismortis/myimperialskullbarexlibris.jpg>

Haggus
Registered User
(4/19/02 10:45:29 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: :-) Wow, my post won't be as detailed as B.A.B.E.'s, but here goes. My friend plays a Biel Tan army he calls "Marine Lovin'", it consists of two Dark Reaper squads (with the mandatory fast shooting exarch w/ missle launcher), big guardian squad w/ starcannon, big nasty HQ, and Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent. This army is very good at killing marines. But its inherent weakness, as is generally the weakness of most eldar armies, is that it cannot take a punch. I generally try and take alot of Heavy Bolters. The Heavy Bolter is one of the Imperium's finest weapons against the Eldar. Hitting on 3's and killing on 2's is very nice against Dark Reapers. The Heavy Bolter that I take in my scout squad almost always makes its points back, especially when you infiltrate them in target range of the aforementioned Reapers [:)] . I plan on buying some more attack bikes armed with Heavy Bolters, they are very effective against everything out there, especially the Tau and Eldar.

Just my 2 cents,
Haggus

Enrozes
Registered User
(4/20/02 8:52:12 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Banshees I play against eldar regularly, and I believe that banshees are over-rated. I find that if you go out of your way to miss them, then you lose your coordinated assault, and everything goes haywire. If you charge banshees, you can usually eliminate all of them, or if they are a big squad (9-10) all but 1 or 2. yes, I hear you squaking about how they get to strike first and they have power weapons and the exarch has an executioner and nanananana. but, think about it. I like to hit them with a big tac squad, the vet serg. having a power fist, and my librarian giving support. the banshees hit 6, wound 2.
okay, one of the hits is on the librarian's Iron Halo. he saves it.
one tac marine dies. alright my turn. 8 tac marines, all with two attacks. so you hit 8, and wound 6. 3 banshees die. now, the librarian's turn. 3 base, +1 for term honors, +1 for pw and pistol, +1 for charge. 3 hit, 2 wound. 2 dead banshees. now the vet sergeant, with 2 base, +1 for charge, +1 for pf and pistol, +2 from the librarian's psychic power. hit 3, wound 2, kill 2. final result after 1 round: 7 dead banshees, 1 dead marine. and that was against a squad of ten! now they take a leadership test, and if the exarch is dead, they have to roll under 5. probability tells us they will fail, and the combat is over.

you're welcome. that was a very detailed post, and not really about total tactics against eldar, but I hope it still helps you.

Edited by: Enrozes at: 4/20/02 8:56:00 am
Interrogator Chaplain Ignacio
Registered User
(4/20/02 9:17:19 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: Banshees Er, Enrozes, that would be assuming that your Librarian is able to save the attack on his Iron Halo. Touch wood, but if the dice don't fall your way, he might not be around to lend a hand to the punch. I suppose if the odds are with you, then it is a good idea. Personally, I'd prefer to shoot them... even the basic Strength 4 bolter can be fairly effective [:)]

"I find your lack of faith... disturbing"
Enrozes
Registered User
(4/20/02 9:24:54 am)
Reply | Edit | Del If he doesn't save it Even if he fails that one save, he still has one wound left, and still gets to deal his damage.

TheAngelR
Chaplain
(4/20/02 2:50:07 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del :-) The best anti-Eldar weapon: Storm Bolters

Over-looked and under-rated. At assault 2 range 24" AP5 these make a real mess of those guardians! OK, so I'm suggesting Terminators (what else is new?) but hey, they can really hurt Eldar. Of course the assault cannon can take care of more heavily armed troops, and the cyclone missile launcher can cause even more problems for the infantry.

For the more heavily equipped Eldar Farseer's, plasma cannon them and charge them.

Only take enough shooting power to deal with the units that you must shoot though. You must not try and beat Eldar by beating them at their own game. Keep a strong assault force, eldar are not that tough in HtH, only a few select troops are.

Good luck!

The Tactica Imperium

highpriestkraken
Registered User
(4/21/02 6:59:11 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Hey... Don't forget Craftworld Eldar... those change the whole outlook of an army. I've faced Biel-Tan and Alaitoc forces in a tourney. The first was against an Alaitoc I took a shooty marine force that was mostly on foot. With the ranger disruption table he had the game won at the first turn. At another tourney I faced the same guy who took a Biel-Tan force and me with my BA forces. I took some horrific losses when my force got in range of his D-cannons. Three vehicle obliterated lossing all inside. I'm still trying to build a good tourney ready army to face these kind of threats

Kraken
"We have seen the face of the enemy and our duty is clear..."

baronsmeg  <http://www.sluggy.net/images/bunchat.gif>
Registered User
(4/21/02 10:33:41 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del well their is one weapon that i love to use against eldar OK so what do most eldar units have???

a 4+ armour save

or a 5+ cover save! some times with a reroll!!!

the cover save is one of the most common thing you see on a guardian squad

so i have a lovely weapon that does away with both!

the HEAVY FLAMMER (possibly my most favorite weapon!)
[:eek] [:eek] [:eek]

well this bad boy can toast almost all types of eldar on a 2+ without allowing a save!

but it is only 12" long, so how do you get it close???

the land speeder tornado!!!

this bad boy can match the eldars speed and dish it to them rather well! it also has the added bonus of carrying a second weapon which for me is normally a multi melta!

the multi melta is good and can hurt the bigger units, but will always be the first weapon to go if needed!

i will normally stay in cover till the time to strike is right!!! and the i come along and toast the eldar! dennying them their cover and armour saves [:smokin]

im shure we all know how dangerouse reapers can be! btu the heavy flammer takes care of them too!!!

just my bit to add to the anti eldar tactics thread [;)]

Enrozes
Survived Geneseed Implantation
(5/12/02 10:19:11 am)
Reply | Edit | Del bump you're welcome, GLG NBA

"And if ever the Talon of Horus should fall into the sight of a Blood Angel, that warrior shall become unstoppable, and strike down the coward who bears it. And even then, the hate will not cease, nor will it ever."
Edited by: Enrozes at: 5/12/02 10:20:18 am
BloodAngelBrotherEdward
Sanguinary High Priest
(5/12/02 2:54:30 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del
<http://www.dragonrealm.com/exlibrismortis/P2090005Helmet_close3r.jpg> into the records it goes :) I've just copied these articles and will add them into the "Tactica Eldar" section very soon! [:)]
~ Brother Edward


<http://www.dragonrealm.com/exlibrismortis/myimperialskullbarexlibris.jpg>

Master Captain Ascherre
Initiate
(5/12/02 3:47:50 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: well their is one weapon that i love to use against elda I've read this thread, and I can see we have varied opinions about what to use and how to use it; what to fear and how to deal with it. Perhaps the best weapon to bring when fighting is the understanding of the mission objectives for attacker and defender, then understanding the initial deployment. You're probably going to have a better feel for how to CYA, and succeed in your attack/defense after the pieces begin to be deployed.

Yes, I'll admit, it's a bit too late once the pieces are on the table, but you will be able to identify suitable, tactical alternatives to your original plan. If you can't reposition units because you don't know you'll have enough game turns, then re-perform the threat comparison based on the actual setup, determine how the units can best deal with their situation, then go for what you know. I can assure the Eldar player is gong to do the same... [:D]

After all, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

If we are using these armies correctly, Brother Edward has provided sound advice: Make sure everybody can "see" everybody, and (from my take), operate as an army. All our weapons and countermeasures will prove worthless, if the attacks aren't coordinated, and supporting units are unavailable during the assaults. We know that Eldar depend on their speed, won't outnumber you by too much, and cannot take a punch.

In my few encounters with the Eldar, I made the mistake of paying too much attention to DR, WL... I began to try to understand how the Eldar work together as a unit, and the proof is in: Ignore the psychological effects of weapons they put before you; Wraithlords, Wraithguard, Dark Reapers. All can be defeated, just see where they are, concentrate your attacks, and take advantage of their weaknesses, mostly, their relative lack of speed sans transports. Sure, fleet of foot is nice, but they aren't very likely to charge into a BA unit without some support. Spread them out and they'll have more than a few problems

Bring down their flyers and transports quickly, and it's almot a cakewalk to their eventual defeat.
Hope that made sense.

"We Shall Return to Glory for the Lion and Our Emperor!"

Edited by: Master Captain Ascherre at: 5/12/02 7:32:01 pm
GLG NBA  <http://www.dragonrealm.com/exlibrismortis/NBA_VetSrgIcon.jpg>
Initiate
(5/12/02 8:15:38 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Thanks Everyone! This answered my post! [:)]