19th Hole – Eldar – Farseer’s Dance
I have been playing Eldar since they came out and they were one of the very first armies I ever started to play. Here is my latest take on putting together a balanced and effective tabeltop force for the Craftworlders:
Looking back the Eldar have always been the specialized army with very high costs. Banshees are designed to take out heavy infantry, Scorpions to take out light to medium infantry, Fire Dragons as tank busters and etc. That being said they have it tough now in 5th edition at least the way I feel. They don’t have any high rate of fire weapons on models expect for war walkers with scatter lasers or efficient high volume ap2 weapons such as plasma. They have very high cost vehicles on top of higher cost upgrades compared to other codeices – mainly IG and even Space Marines at this point. Eldar are in a tough spot in the grim darkness but they can still work…
Eldar Army Farseer Dance 1750pts
Farseer w/ Runes of witness, spirit stone, jetbike
Psyker powers: Doom, Guide, and fortune
Farseer w/ Runes of witness, spirit stone, runes of warding
Psyker powers: Doom, guide, and fortune
Fire Dragons with Exarch x6
Dragon’s breathe flamer
Wave Serpent with twin-linked Scatter lasers and stones
Fire Dragons with Exarch x6
Dragons breathe flamer
Wave Serpent with twin-linked Scatter lasers
Storm Guardians
Warlock, 2 flamers,
Wave serpent with TL bright lance
Storm Guardians
Warlock, 2 fusion guns
Wave serpent with TL bright lance
Guardian Jetbikes x 4 with cannon
Guardian Jetbikes x 3 with catapults
Fire Prism /w spirit stone
Fire Prism /w spirit stone
This really only gives you 8 units to move around with another 4 mounted inside the wave serpents. You are not going to win assaults against a hyper assault army just accept that fact. With Eldar you’re not going to out shoot a hyper focused shooting army unless the’re idiots with a spammy assaultcannon and autocannon list. I feel like this list gives the Eldar the most flexibility within the book right now against most of the armies out there. The list still leaves you 4 scoring units to hold objectives and while giving you the ability to cause strife across the board with your high mobility.
General Tactics
You can run this army in multiple different ways following Fritz’s idea and always reserving off the board. You can run this in a large single block together, or what I would suggest – running the list within two small groups. First I would reserve one jet bike unit off the board and either attach the other Farseer to the jet bike unit with the cannon or run him behind a tank where he will be out of LOS from the other army. You want some focus on him as your main Farseer will be riding in a Wave Serpent. If you are going first and you are playing marines I would run these “pods” together: one Fire dragon unit, one Guardian unit then the fire prism together on one side of the board and another identical pod on the right side. Using The Wave serpents to block the fire prisms from other shots till you buy time to hit key targets.
When playing Eldar you have to eliminate the key threat quickly then out maneuver your opponent if you’re going to win games. You need to understand ranges of pretty much every unit that your opponent is fielding and stay outside of 90% of his guns and bring down units that have range that is over 36 to 48 at least in the first 3 turns. If you’re playing an objective game which hurts Eldar the most I think you’re going to have to sacrifice units at critical times to pull yourself on the objective and avoid counter assaults from other units. You can’t let your troops get caught out of their transport till the last minute or when it’s needed and you have no other choice.
When you do go on the offensive you need to deploy everything to make sure you take out that unit or the unit that is going to counter assault. If you deploy your Fire Dragons to take out a Land Raider with 5 Terminators in it and your opponent has a Rhino running next to it you need to make sure that you have ALL four of your Serpents there. Deploy the Fire Dragons so they can have shots on both units if need be. Have the Guardian’s Serpents fire first to destroy the Land Raider, then your tanks. If they do get out you need to use Fire Dragons to bring down the Terminators, then take out the Rhino and hope you have delayed the counter assault long enough for you to get your guys back in and out of the area. If your grand plan fails hopefully you have put Storm Guardians in a way you can screen the multiple counter assaults and minimize your losses. You have to take your pop shots for the first couple of turns find your opponent’s weakness and strike hard. Once he is crippled and out of position you leave and work at it again hopefully while claiming your objectives.
I understand this might seem like rambling for others or unclear but it’s a very hard thing to teach or convey with tactics with Eldar. If anyone has ever read the Art of war by Sun Tzu the best way they have ever described the style was using chariots against multiple armies, making them tired and out of position waiting for the right moment. They would attack the flanks and sides of the army only to pull away when the fighting got started till the time was right they would attack with everything and demoralize the army.
That is this week’s list, now remember you can tweak and change it if you want for a softer game and there are things you can do to make it harder but its your choice at the end to use it… Otherwise I’d love to hear your thoughts on its design as well as you own tweaks and advice. If you have any special requests for next week’s lists, let’s hear them or you can message me on the BoLS Forum. Darkwynn out!
