Hello,

I have my first game planned of EA in a couple of weeks using Eldar Biel-Tan and it will be against IG.  It will be the first game for the IG player as well.  For this reason we are trying to keep the points around 1500 or a little more.  The list below is 1675.

All I know about the other player's army is there will be a Leman Russ company, a baneblade and at least one formation of flyers... I haven't heard about any infantry yet.

Any advice you can provide on tactics or what units I should be fielding against IG would be great.

Also, I have a question about how infantry inside transports are represented on the board.  In battle report pictures you never see the infantry until they disembark.  Is this how people actually play (keep track on paper) or do you place the infantry behind the transport showing what units are inside it?

This is a text dump of my Eldar list from Army Builder:

Biel-Tan Roster

Avatar (1#, 0 Pts)
  1 Avatar @ 0 Pts
     1 Avatar & The Court of the Young King @ [0] Pts
        Court of the Young King; Wailing Doom; Commander; Fearless; Inspiring; Invulnerable Save; Walker

Warhost: Guardian Warhost (12#, 350 Pts)
  1 Guardian Warhost @ 350 Pts
     1 Farseer & Warlock Bodyguard @ [0] Pts
        Shuriken Pistol; Witch Blades; Commander; Farsight; Invulnerable Save
     7 Guardians @ [0] Pts
        Shuriken Catapult
     4 Wave Serpent @ [200] Pts
        Twin Shuriken Cannon; Reinforced Armour; Skimmer

Warhost: Aspect Warrior Warhost (14#, 550 Pts)
  1 Aspect Warrior Warhost @ 550 Pts
     2 Exarch (CCW) @ [50] Pts
        Exarch Close Combat Weapon; Inspiring
     4 Dire Avengers @ [0] Pts
        Shuriken Catapult
     4 Striking Scorpions @ [0] Pts
        Mandiblasters; Shuriken Pistol
     4 Wave Serpent @ [200] Pts
        Twin Shuriken Cannon; Reinforced Armour; Skimmer

Troupe: Falcon Troupe (5#, 250 Pts)
  1 Falcon Troupe @ 250 Pts
     3 Falcon @ [0] Pts
        Falcon Pulse Laser; Scatter Laser; Skimmer
     2 Firestorm @ [0] Pts
        Firestorm Battery; Skimmer

Warhost: Aspect Warrior Warhost (9#, 325 Pts)
  1 Aspect Warrior Warhost @ 325 Pts
     1 Exarch (CCW) @ [25] Pts
        Exarch Close Combat Weapon; Inspiring
     8 Shining Spears @ [0] Pts
        Power Lances; Mounted; Skimmer

Aircraft: Vampire (1#, 200 Pts)
  1 Vampire @ 200 Pts
     1 Vampire Raider @ [0] Pts
        Pulse Lasers (x2); Scatter Laser; Planetfall; Reinforced Armour

Total Roster Cost: 1675

Thanks again,
Brent

Welcome to E:A!

Comments on your Force:

It is not necessary to have everything in Wave Serpents, I´d drop them from both the Guardians and Drie Avenger/Scorpions Warhosts. The Guardians will be useful to guard your Blitz objective while the Aspects should make a very nice load for the Vampire Raider, which you can then use for Air Assaults.

Since you just saved 400Pts, I´d aim for a 1500 Pts list, add another Exarch to the Shining Spears Warhost and consider either a Windriders Troupe (my fave mix is 4 Jetbikes and 2 Vypers) or another Guardian Warhost and either a Wraithgate or + 3 Support Weapon Platforms to the Guardians or, ideally, upgrading one of the Exarchs to an Autarch, which both avoids having 2 formations that are Break-their-Spirit-goals and gives you the Supreme Commander reroll, which is always handy.

In short:

000 Avatar
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
400 8xSSpears, Exarch, Autarch
350 4xDAs,4xSSs, 2xExarch
200 Vampire Raider
250 Falcon Troupe 3xFalcons 2xFireStorm

1500 Points, 6+1 Activations

2 Guardian formations should also make it easier to summon the Avatar someplace useful.

Tactics:

Force the IG to spread out, engage their armour with the SSpears or Air Assault them with the Raider+Aspects. The Falcon Troupe cannot stand up to a Leman Russ Company, don´t even try it. You´ll also fail to inflict sufficient damage if you attempt hit and run and skimmer tactics vs. them, there are usually a lot of softer targets you should kill first, leave the Russes to the Aspects and shoot up artillery, Chimeras and whatelse!

Consider replacing some of the Guardians with Heavy Weapon platforms, you can place a Blastmarker out to 30cm that way, just don´t expect to kill anything. Guardians are tough to shift when in cover and on the defense, use them to hold objectives and place the odd BM to prepare Engage actions, avoid leaving them in the open or trying an Engage of their own, they´ll die in droves unless bolstered by Wraithguard, and even then Aspects with their "Inspiring" Exarchs are better, as are the much faster Windrider Troupes.

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Thank you... appreciate the response.  

About the Wave Serpents... is that only because of the limited points in this first game you wouldn't recommend them or in general?  Is there an enemy army that you would want to use them?  Their movement would seem to be slow without transportation... I'm speaking from no experience though.  

I'll add a Windrider Troupe but that will put the points at 1700... only 25 more than the original list but with a little more punch against those tanks.

Regards,
Brent

Wave Serpents are fine by themselves, they can even be used to turn humble Guardians into an Engage-capable formation by being placed in the frontline with the Guardians behind, so that the first 4 hits go to the tanks which have 5+ RA (reinforced armour save). I commonly field my Eldar as Ulthwé (I love Guardians), and have a Black Guardian formation in Wave Serpents for such missions.

An even better plan is to use a "Double" action, putting the Guardians and Wave Serpents withing 15cm of a target, placing a few BM with the Shuriken Cannons, and then follow up with Windriders or other assault troops with the mounted Guardian formation in support, which gives some 11 FF attacks hitting on a 4+ and 1 on a 5+ through support alone, sufficient to smash all but the most heavily armoured enemies and usually sufficient to swing the assault odds in your favour. These sorts of tactics, place a formation in support range and assault with another by retaining actions are the key to victory for many armies, especially Eldar and Space Marines.

Using infantry mounted in Wave Serpents in an assault-support role is also preferable since they would have to start the turn inside the tanks to pull off an Engage and then dismount the infantry to fight, while using a Double they can start outside, be picked up during the first of the 2 Double moves, then disembark after the 2nd.

Infantry staying inside their transports are just begging to have the APCs shot, if you can´t hide them (and it is impossible to hide from IG artillery) don´t try.

Now, Aspect Warriors in Wave Serpents: All of the above applies, for shock troops like Striking Scorpion, Banshees and Avengers I´d prefer the Vampire Raider for delivery, it is (somwhat) more difficuly to counter, especially on Planetfall, though planetfalling requires a cunning plan as you will have to make sure there is a suitable target in the Landing Zone.
Fire Dragons are useful in the assault-support role and carrying them in Wave Serpents is a viable tactic.
Dark Reapers can do that as well, their longer ranged weaponry is at times capable of shifting enemy infantry, but this takes experience to set up and often combined arms as well (read: move into position late one turn, fire them on "Sustain" early another, have some Nightspinners ready to provide extra BM sufficient to break the enemy. Dark Reapers roll a lot of dice, sometimes you get lucky and cause enough damage to break them, but don´t count on it and have backup ready.

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Hi,

Thanks for the great advice.  Going back to one of my original questions is there a standard way to represent what units are inside a transport before they disembark?  

Is it known to the enemy player which units are in each transport by placing them directly behind the transport or it is written down and later revealed as each one disembarks?

Thanks again,
Brent

No, there is no standard way of representing transported troops to my knowledge. You can either mark a specific vehicle or randomize or assume that any characters are riding in the last vehicle to be hit or set up the transported troops next to the table in a fashion representative of their respective APCs.

This is the kind of stuff that should be brought up in the 5-minute warm-up before games...

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Thanks for those tactics Iron Death.  Is there a tactics area on this site for the different armies for us newbies?  Not set in stone tactics, but something to get people started, like force make ups and general tactics.  The .pdf from SG on building armies is good, but it'd be nice to see what everyone else thinks.

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No, there is no "tactics manual" for any army. Actually it would probably detract from some of the fun. While most races have a strategic theme, there are usually a number of ways of using the troops, and these vary as much through personal preference as through the strengths and weaknesses of particular formations.

For example, while Irondeath tends to prefer using more Guardian formations to get an activation edge (which the Eldar tend to need as they tend to work better counter-attacking IMO), I prefer deploying two or three strong assault formations for use in the middle or end of each turn to whittle down the enemy's activations. As such, I have had reasonable success using WraithGuard and even Wraithlord upgrades to a Guardian formation deployed from a Storm Serpent straight into an assault on the enemy.

That said, the standard advice is to start with the more balanced armies (Orks or Imperial Guard) which are generally easier to master. Eldar and Space Marines are less forgiving if you make mistakes, and tend to require more attention to small details as a consequence. Equally, do try to play through some of the basic training scenarios at the end of each of the sections in the rule book to familiarize yourselves with concepts like cross-fire, intermingling and the whole assault process, and then work up to the use of Macro Weapons (and Titan killers), War engines and titans and Aircraft; all of which have different strategies, tactics (and rules). Don't be afraid to proxy things while you learn the rules with your friends, and above all, have fun.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Thanks again for the responses.

I have another question about Shining Spears.  GW sells these in groups of six stands but you need eight.  They show pictures of three bikes per stand but can I mount two on seven stands and three on the stand with the exarch?

Since my understanding is the number of dice for attack is based on the number of stands not the number of units on each stand... that should be fine?

Another question about Eldar.  Retaining the initiative... I understand the concept but with the Eldar ability to retain it twice do you always try to do it every turn?  Are there times when you would not use this ability per turn?  It states in the Swordwind rulebook that any formation may be chosen... does that mean a formation that already performed an action?

Thanks,
Brent

No, you can´t activate a unit twice in the same turn. The double retain is quite useful, mainly from Turn 2 onwards when you are in position to use hit and run to have formations that pulled a winning engage action use their full consolidation move to get into position to support the next attack. Three successful Engage actions can wreck an enemy flank and win a game if done properly.

Some examples can be found in this old tourney-batreps of mine, especially in the battle vs the Feral Orks.

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/forums/ ... =24;t=8794


Shining Spears are "mounted infantry" and per the basing conventions laid down in 1.1.2


1.1.2 Stands
...
• Stands representing infantry units must have at least
three infantry models and may not have more than
seven. Infantry mounted on bikes or horses must have
between two and four models mounted on each base.
...

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All the old Space Marine game formations had two bikes to a stand, 3 only came in in Epic 40K, as far as I can remember.

I have a doubt about retaining initiative:
Can I retain more than once per turn (any army)? there are more than one "row" per turn.
If no: can eldars choose to leave the second retain for later in the turn??

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You many always attempt to retain the initiative after activating a formation at the start of a turn, or after activiating a formation after your opponent has finished an activation; all armies can do this, as many times as they want per turn, until they run out of un-activated formations.  So, that would be two friendly formations going in a row, maximum, this way.

With farsight, Eldar may attempt to activate a *third* formation in that sequence, once per turn, whenever they'd like, after activating two previous friendly formations.  Successful or not, play then passes to the opponent (if there's anything left!  *laugh*).

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Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Ok, thanks.

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