Hey all. I'm starting to dig my stuff out for a summer of gaming. My main gaming buddy's got his IG army mostly put together.

I'm looking at what I have and I realize that I'm long on the troops and short on the machinery. I've got loads of guardians and aspect warriors, but for vehicles I'm pretty much limited to a dozen Mk I falcons to use as wave serpents, a few current wave serpents, three nightwings, three fire prisms, and a scorpion.

Seems pretty thin. mostly transports, and seemingly no real counter to my buddy's leman russ company... What do you guys think. Can I get by using the transports, jetbikes, and swooping hawks to get in close and do the dirty work, or should I look at grabbing some bigger guns?

Well, you have plenty of transport, so speed is not a problem. The Nightwings, Prisms and Scorpion can hinder the Russes, as long as they aren´t more than 20 or so. If you can put lots of blast markers on those tank formations, they won´t be so fearsome.

And of course, with so many guardians, sure you will out-activate him.

I love infantry armies, and if the board has enough cover they are a hard nut to crack, but moving sooooo many little stands every turn...

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Yes, infantry heavy can work just fine, especially if you have a substantial mounted component. If you have lots of plastic infantry and old falcons, I would guess you have a lot of the old weapon platforms as well. Guardian Hosts with weapon platforms are cheap, can place BMs and are good in FF. That's good for softening up an enemy and your aspect warriors can hit hard.

With mounted formations you need to get down a tactic typically referred to as the "rolling assault" for Eldar. Formation 1 moves up and shoots at a target, getting within range to support FF. Formation 2 assaults the target. After the win, Formation 2 uses their full consolidation move to move within support range of Target 2. Formation 3, using Farsight's third activation, assaults Target 2. When you hit a flank like that, you can crush a wing of an army in short order.

Another thing to do with transported infantry is to stay behind cover, out of line of sight. Stay in the vehicles so you can use their full move/dismount on an Engage action. Assault forward, then use the full consolidation move to get back into the transports and back behind the cover. Unless the enemy is on Overwatch, they never get to shoot outside of the assault.

As far as Leman Russ, the Nightwings have Lance and the Scorpion has MW. Both can put a hurt on Russ. The way to go with them is to suppress them. If you kill just a single Leman Russ on a full company, you eliminated 30% of their firepower - 10 Russ, 1 kill, 2 BMs (fire, kill) suppress 2 more, so they can fire with only 7 units. Avoid them until you're ready to take them on, then hit them in rapid succession so you can destroy/suppress as many as possible. If you manage to break them, pound them mercilessly.

I played Biel-Tan early on in my Eldar days (you know, like 3 months ago...) and found that I didnt like the lack of maneuverability very much, so I started playing around with Saim-Hann. Sure, I really enjoyed every stinkin' unit moving 35cm, but I also realized that I was missing the cheap activations, and ability of a larger unit of infantry dug into some woods or a building being much harder to break than, say, a smaller unit of jetbikes.

So now Ive gone back to the basics in an attempt to get my Eldar tactics down. Just like when playing with soap bubbles, the user can break them as easily as the enemy if not careful. Once I get my perfect balance down, I'll let you know

I can say, I really love a unit of Guardians with 3 Wraithguard and 1 or 2 Heavy Support platforms. 300 points for such close range firepower and survivability isnt too bad. Or do that once and augment it with 2 non-upgraded formations and you have a solid base to defend your side of the board with.

Paint up one group of Falcons to be, well, Falcons, and paint the other to be something like Firestorms. Use your newer Wave Serpents to transport a single unit of Aspects. Thats 3 units of Mech right there. Add some Jetbikes (I LOVE Jetbikes, usually with 1 or 2 Vypers), and dont be afraid of Swooping Hawks or Shining Spears. Neither need transport, both can wreak some havok, and SS's obliterate tanks. Being almost twice as fast, skimming, they nullify Reinforced Armor with their Lance weapons. Supported by a Rolling Assault, above, shaBAM. The only thing you need to do is lull the tanks away from their own supporting fire. A supported tank company is SCARY! :0

One last thing...as you plan your Rolling Assault, keep your units back as far as you can while still getting your maximum amount in the 15cm range. Hitting a spread out formation from their flank will help achieve this. This will prevent his Counter-Assault from bringing in his whole weight to bear on you, and can also limit his Supporting Fire, as those supporting units must be within 15cm of one of your units to fire. I believe this is termed a Clipping Assault, and is an extra-fast way to break enemy formations, including tanks! (I love crushing scouts this way...which includes IG Storm Troopers whose Valkyries are ranging ahead of their deployed cargo!)

So, in summary:
3-4 infantry units. Reinforce as your points allow
1-2 ASpect formations. 1 mounted, 1 not
1-2 units of Jetbikes
1-2 units of Falcons with Flak
1 Nightwing
1 Scorpion

I think you have the makings of a solid army right there. As you discover what you love and arent so fond of, you can tailor the list to your own preferences (obviously), but IMHO thats a great place to start.

Thanks for the advice, guys. From what you tell me, seems like a storm serpent would be a pretty great addition, no? I do like the concept of skimming around spilling some more guardians and aspects onto the board in crucial spots. I'm going to be playing against vultures and valkyries a lot, too, so I need to find a counter for that...

My buddy and I are going to probably start at 2,000 point until we get a better handle on things. The only game I played was 2,000 points, and my list had some pretty steep flaws in it.

My current idea is for something like this:
-guardian host with transport
-guardian host with transport
-guardian host with 3 heavy weapons
-aspect warrior host (8 swooping hawks, autarch)
-ranger troupe (4 rangers)
-fire prism troupe
-scorpion

That leaves me 175 points to play around with. I want to find a way to sneak some jetbikes in there, so maybe I'll get rid of one of the guardian units, or the rangers. I do like rangers' ability to spread the board out, though.

Not bad. A good start. However, removing the 200 points of WS from one of the Guardians would give you 3 Wraithguard for one formation, and an extra Falcon for the Swords of Vaul. Trust me: 6 tanks are better than 5, because those tanks get supressed quickly!

Also, keep mobile with those tanks, and try ending your turn as far from potential anti-armor threats as possible. Mine are usually some of the first to get targetted and destroyed, so they need to be as zippy as possible to survive.

I've used a rolling assault, and while it took me a while to get the hang of it (I wasn't aggressive enough with my infantry in my first two games), it worked much more effectively in my third game, because I managed to successfully crush my opponent's flank using a Warlock Titan and two Aspect formations in Wave Serpents, supported by Guardians on foot.

You, obviously, don't have the points to take a Warlock Titan, so you would use the Guardians in unison with the Aspect Warriors, and as Neal says, Guardians are actually not too bad in a firefight, and if you can position Wraithlords (assuming you add them to the infantry formation) at the head of the unit, you may also be able to get them into base contact during the engagement, which doesn't hurt, considering they are pretty handy, when swinging their macro weapons.

Taking Fire Prisms is quite expensive, and you may find six Falcons is sufficient for such a small game, so you may want to save some points with this formation, in order to bolster the Guardians on foot, as I alluded to above.

I hope that helps.

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Yeah, I'm not entirely sure I quite understand the rolling assault concept yet. I think I'll have to run it a few times before it makes sense to me. I managed area denial with rangers pretty well in my first game, which allowed me to roll up a flank with guardians in wave serpents and jetbikes. I can also potentially run a whole bunch of dire avengers (I use the old space marine guardians as guardians and the current guardians as dire avengers), so I should probably explore using them more, as well. I want to get a good handle on swooping hawks and dark reapers first, though.



Unfortunately I only have 3 wraithguard. No wraithlords here. Maybe guardians + wraithguard out of a storm serpent?



Yeah, I know the fire prisms probably aren't ideal, especially at 2,000 points. Problem is they're basically all I have. Otherwise I'm left with MK1 falcons that I use as wave serpents, three plastic wave serpents without turrets, and war engines. I guess I could sort out some different paint schemes for MK1 falcons and do some more counts-as shenanigans for a falcon troupe, though. There don't seem to be any of the current falcons on ebay right now.

I went up against MattheMuppet's infantry heavy army this past weekend and died horribly at their hands.

It worked just fine.

It sounds like you managed it much better than I did in my first couple of games, so well played .



I don't own a Storm Serpent, but Ginger has written some very good tactics about how to combine infantry formations with the abilities of the Storm Serpent, although I currently cannot find which thread he posted them in, so you may have to send him a PM to see if he can remember. I think it could be a good choice for your army based on that which he wrote.

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So the 2,000 point list I'm thinking about rolling this weekend against IG is something to the effect of:

-Guardian host with wave serpents
-Guardian host with 3 heavy weapons
-Guardian host
-Aspect host with 8 swooping hawks, exarch
-Aspect host with 8 dark reapers, autarch (bts)
-4 rangers
-6 jetbikes
-3 fire prisms
-scorpion

Something about this list doesn't sit right with me, let alone the fact that it's grossly unprepared to take on a tank company. Thoughts?

Well, sticking your Supreme Commander in your BTS target is allowing your opponent to target two birds with one battle cannon for one thing...

I'd drop the Rangers and the un-upgraded Guardians to put in another Windrider Troupe and to add additional Exarchs to the Aspect Warrior Warhosts... having +2 for two inspiring characters will put a serious dent in the enemy.

And, if I was using this army, I'd drop both the Fire Prisms and Scorpion, and put in two Falcon Troupes just for sheer volume of fire. Pop-up and harass the Tank Company, using hit-and-run to stay out of line of sight.

A Tank Company is, essentially, 1/3 of your opponent's army at that point level, just putting Blast markers on it so that it has a greater chance of failing activations will really stymie your opponent. Remember, you don't have to destroy things to win in EPIC and there are many ways to neutralize an enemy's strengths.

Good call on the supreme commander. I just sort of figured he'd probably be safer in the unit that isn't flying around FFing everything. I guess the problem is that none of my formations are particularly expensive, so whatever unit he goes into will likely end up being the BTS.

As for adding more jetbikes; I thought about that too. The un-upgraded guardians don't really serve much of a purpose other than eating up 150 points, but I quite like the rangers... I guess I could use the swooping hawks to scout, right?

Also, I'd absolutely love to drop those tanks for falcons. Problem is I don't really have any. The only falcons I have are MK I's and I'm using them as wave serpents. I'd also kind of like to keep the scorpion purely to get some practice with the war engine rules.

Nothing wrong with experimentation! Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

And, honestly, I'd put the Dark Reapers in the Wave Serpents, over the Guardians. You don't really want your 300+ point formation having to foot-slog across the board getting picked off. Heck, drop the basic Guardian formation and the Rangers and mechanize both a Guardian Warhost *and* and an Aspect Warrior Warhost... that'll get you moving! *laugh*

That dark reaper idea would certainly solve the BTS issue. I've never used them before (I've only played one game, after all), so it's going to take me a while to figure out how best to take advantage of their range and shoot-tasticness. My plan in this game was just sort of to send them up the middle and force the IG infantry to either get into a 45 cm gunfight that they'll lose, or just not come within range and leave me a big chunk of the board. That said, my opponent should be running both vultures and valkyries, so I could just be inviting him to a dark reaper barbeque if I take a leisurely jaunt across the table.