Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Building a Winning Eldar List: A Treatise of Shawn's Eldar

You want a winning Eldar list?  Want an Eldar army that will assure you victory on the table.  Read this for inspiration and success.


JJ typing, let's talk Eldar.  Not Eldar 6th ed or Eldar whining and complaining like I usually do.  Or even the Eldar that have been ridden hard and put away wet.  Eldar we want to win with.

This is a rather in depth look at Shawn's Eldar.  Which can be tweaked by many Eldar players play style and win with it.

First Shawn's list:

Spiritseer no upgrades
2 three Jetbike squads
Fire Prism
2 Wave serpents w/starcannons
6 Wraithguard in Wave Serpent
6 Fire dragons with Feugan in Wave Serpent
6 Eldar Rangers
3 Vaul weapon platforms with Shadow weavers
3 War walkers with two Scatter lasers

Didn't provide points because the treatise isn't about building the list.  It is about using the list to win and win effectively.

Shall we get to it.

Many of you already have an idea what parts of this army are for, how do you make it a winning list?  How this is a winning list determines how the parts of the army are used in concert with each other.

Vaul weapons and War walkers are used to take out infantry, a.k.a. troop hunting.  If you take away your opponents troops, they can't capture objectives.  Later in the game they change target priority to anything else left on the field.

Wave serpents are used in their traditional method.  Get a key unit to a part of the field as fast as possible while minimizing casualties to the transported squad.  In this case Wraithguard to be scoring and line breaker.  Fire dragons waiting for their piece of the action.  Take out heavily armoured models on objectives or tanks.

Spiritseer hangs out and is maybe the cheerleader for the army.  Unlocking Wraithguard as troops.  Can't argue with troops that have Toughness 6.

Jetbikes as expected stay in reserve until as late as possible to flat out on objectives either placed by Eldar player, empty enemy objectives or in rare circumstances, turn 7 and Eldar player is going second, contest objective(s).

Examples of units in action:

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Wraithguard or Fire dragons leave Wave Serpent and shoot at heavy armoured units.  If a tank is popped and troops are inside.  Wave Serpent then shoots at unit sitting in/or disembarked from the wreckage.  Its shield weapon ignores cover and usually removes plenty of models.

Vaul weapons and War walkers work together to reduce enemy troops efficiently.  Can use walkers to take out those in the front rank while the Shadow weaver barrage takes out those behind cover.  Models don't get cover save because wounds count from the centre of the barrage blast marker.  Or if a unit is shielded by an intervening unit(s).  Zombies as example.  Or for some reason some models of the unit are out while others are in cover, perhaps sitting on an objective.  Scatter lasers easily remove zombies who do not get FNP.  Then Shadow weavers take out zombies within the cover.  Again as examples.

Question may come up regarding Jetbikes coming on turn 2.  What do I do?  That is terribly simple.  Nothing.  Put those Jetbikes in a corner near your deployment zone away from the action and keep the opponent distracted with your Awesome Eldar Winning List.  AWEL for initialism, to be silly.  Make sure you move 12" in movement and turbo-boost 36" in shooting to get that 3+ cover save.  Once last turn of the game rears its ugly it is head time for those jetbikes to zoom into action.  However that is a gamble because you could be playing a friendly game or your tournament companion is a fast player.  There's a 66% chance of going into turn six and nearby enemy units removing those jetbikes from the field.

This where units support each other and working as a team hinted at earlier comes into play.  As an Eldar player you shouldn't get into the habit of throwing away models.  Meaning putting jetbikes on an objective that is within shooting range of an enemy unit.  Relying on that Jink save is ignorant in my opinion.

How do you protect your feeble jetbikes when they land on an objective.  You prepare.  First you think of your goal and stay on task.  When you have an objective in mind that your jetbikes are going to capture you need to use the rest of your army to eliminate models from contesting that objective or threats to the jetbikes when they land on it.

As Tallarn mentioned in one of his posts.  Wraithguard can be a great boogie man.  First turn flat out your Wave serpent into the enemy's deployment zone.  Next turn unload the Wraithguard.  Now instead of working on the balls of their feet.  Enemy has to maintain balance when pushed on their heels.  A Wave serpent and squad of Wraithguard hanging out sending joy and letters via twin-linked Starcannons or Scatter lasers and Wraithcannons are always a fun time.  Hope the joke was understood.

While your opponent is pouring shot after shot and maneuvering units to take care of the Wave serpent and Wraithguard you can start working on the same units.  In turn 5 an enemy objective maybe free of hassle when your jetbikes land on it.

Now this list is a Winning Eldar List for Shawn.  It can be a winning list for you.  Getting to the point of this post: Building a Winning Eldar List.  You can netlist or spend time at the table finding out how your Eldar works.  Should you copy this list and play it you will win more often then lose, at first.  I say at first because like battle, the 40k board is a living breathing entity.  Its uncaring and unforgiving.  It will quickly learn your list and adapt to it, then your wins will turn into losses.  This happened to me when I used Natfka's three webway list.  Should this happen.  You'll need to learn what part of the army doesn't work for you and adapt like your opponents have.  Good news is that should you keep that up you'll be an Eldar guru in no time.


slainte mhath

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