750pt and 1,000 pt Eldar

I was recently asked how to take my 1,850 point Eldar army down to 750 and 1,000 pts.  That's a hard one for me as 1,500 is really the lowest point level I play, and I enjoy playing it.  But I pulled up good old army builder and did a little thinking and came up with this.

At 750 pts, I would try something along these lines;

-=HQ=-
Farseer - 93 (or 95)
Singing Spear, Runes of Warding, Guide (or Doom)

-=Elites=-
Fire Dragons x5 - 190
Wave Serpent, TL-Shuriken Cannons, Spirit Stones

-=Troops=-
Guardian Jetbike Squad x6 - 202
2x Shuriken Cannon
Warlock, Embolden

Guadian Jetbike Squad x3 - 66

-=Fast=-
Warp Spiders x4 - 137
Exarch, Powerblades, Death Spinner x2

-=Heavy=-
Warwalker - 60
2x Scatter Laser

With this list you'll be playing a pretty mobile army with some good str 6 weapons that can reach out and touch someone or get into position to do so.  The Farseer will ride with the Dragons, and either guide them, or doom their target.  Doom really isn't necessary for them, so I find guiding and being able to hit the target to be the better choice.

The bikes will be a harassing unit, moving around the board, shooting at targets of opportunity and then moving into take objectives near the end of the game.


At 1,000 pts, try adding these;

-=Elites=-

Fire Dragons x5 - 190
Wave Serpent, TL-Shuriken Cannons, Spirit Stones

-=Heavy=-

Warwalker - 60
2x Scatter Laser



With these two units added, your opponent will have a hard time going after your troop choices and ignoring the pain that these can bring.  But play smart, don't think your opponent won't shoot down your troops if you leave them out in the open.

Henchmen Heavy Bolter Spam

While looking at what could be the premise of the Upcoming Grey Knights codex I noticed that the use of Inquisitor Coteaz could allow someone to spam Heavy Bolters and Plasma Cannons like crazy. Today however I would just like to evaluate the points and see if it's worth doing?

In the New Grey Knight codex it appears we'll have the ability to take a heavy bolter on a BS 3 Servitor for all of 10 points. One hitch though, if an Inquisitor is not in the unit, the servitors do not work unless you can roll a 4+ each turn.

The Breakdown, in 6 turns we can assume it'll fire 3 times, with a hit rate of 4.5 so for ten points we'll be spending 2.2 points a hit.

A Space Marine Devastator with Heavy Bolter will run 32 points. It will fire all 6 turns and will have 12 hits through out the game at 2.66 points a hit.

We can see that it's possible for players to run a Heavy Bolter Servitor at a better cost for firepower then Space Marines. Will this be useful I do not know, but at least we know that they are not completely useless.

Tactics: Reserve Denial

So at the Wasteland Wars 7 Tournament back in August I used a tactic called Reserves Denial for 4 out of the 5 games I played. It's a tactic a picked up a little from reading the internet and a little from playing against my good friend who was using his Drop Pods to take out make tanks before I ever got to begin my turn.

The point of Reserves Denial is to deny your opponent a turn or two of shooting. The way this works is much like the way going second in Dawn of War works. Player one is on the board, and has their entire army. Then you either have your 1 HQ and 2 Troops, or you leave them all off the board. Player one's turn then consists of moving his units, and if nothing is on the board he then losing out on a shooting phase. Leaving you the chance to come back and shoot after you come onto the board during your turn.

This tactic favors the Eldar quite a bit, as it allows their weaker units the chance to attack before they are shot at and destroyed. It also gives them a chance to either turbo boost or move flat out to get those cover saves in games with very little terrain.

The main issue with Reserves Denial is that it can leave you open for some bad rolling when it's time to bring your units onto the table. I've had a couple games where my units dribbled onto the game board leaving me wide open to taken out piece by piece.

Advantages:
- If you're not on the board, you can't die.
- If you go second, you deny your opponent 2 turns of damage against you.
- Creates a great Alpha Stike ability for your army.
- Lets you react to your opponents deployment and movement.

Disadvantages:
- Creates a chance for your forces to come in sparactically.
- Gives you less time to destroy your opponent/complete objectives.

There are three armies that can really take advantage of Reserves Denial by minimizes the disadvantages. The Eldar, Space Marines and Imperial Guard all have ways to increase the chances of your units coming on the board from reserves.

Eldar: They have the Auctarch, with the master Strategist Ability which allows you to add 1 to your rolls for reserves. Eldar also have the benefit of taking two which allows you the ability to add plus 2 to your reserves. So what are the odds of your men coming in?

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
1 Autarch: Turn 2 - 67% Turn 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
2 Autarchs: Turn 2 - 83% Turn 3 - 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically

You might be wondering why it caps out at 83%, this is because a roll of a 1 always fails, and you always have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 1. But with 2 Autarchs you should be very confident in getting 80% of your forces on the board.

Space Marines: Have Varro Tigurius, the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines and a Special Character. He has the ability, Gift of Presence, which allows you to re-roll any reserve rolls. His ability actually gives you a chance to re-roll that 1 on the dice, and will also allow you to re-roll passed rolls if you have something you want to stay in reserves. So what are the benefits of his re-roll?

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
Re-roll: Turn 2 - 75% Turn 3 - 89% Turn 4 - 97% Turn 5 - Automatically

Imperial Guard: Under the Regimental Advisors there is the Astropath. He has the Telepathic Relay that works exactly the same way as the Eldar Autaurch, along with a bonus of allowing you to re-roll your outflank rolls (wish the Autarch could do that). I've not yet seen any IG players do Reserve Denial because it's usually players pulling this tactic against them, but it could open up some possibilities of an outflanking army or something else if you're not playing the normal Gunline IG. Here's your odds.

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
1 Autarch: Turn 2 - 67% Turn 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
2 Autarchs: Turn 2 - 83% Turn 3 - 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically

While people may not always find it fun playing against the Reserve Denial List, it's a great way to counter the Alpha Strike or Leaf Blower list that wipes you off the board Turn 1.

Howling Banshee Tricks by: Dverning

Hey Everyone, Just to let you know that Dverning has been kind enough to share topics from his blog. I thought I'd introduce him with a rather helpful one that is kind to all Eldar Players. You can see the orignal here.

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Over on Warseer's Eldar Tactica, Ernest101 posted the following:
"hey guys, i am having this really big prob, i play a full mech list, when i drop my banshees, they kill almost anything i want them to kill in their path, but after that assault phase, they always get blown to bits... hardly surviving a shooting phase... any suggestion guys?"

My response:
Well, you really have three options:
1. Don't let them shoot at you.
2. Reduce the effect of their shooting at you.
3. Balance your charge so that you are still in CC during their turn.

As I see it, there's several things that can greatly influence the above situations: Fortune, Doom, Multiple Units, Screening, Cover, and Target Selection.

1. Fortune. I can't emphasize enough how useful this power is. Not only can you protect your Banshees in CC and from shooting, but you can also protect their tank as you close into range too.

2. Doom. With only a S3, Banshees often need the added boost of Doom to give them a little extra punch. But you should remember that those re-rolls are optional. Say you've get 15 hits and cause 6 wounds to a 10-man Marine squad. The immediate reaction of most people is to pick up the other 9 dice and re-roll them all at once. This will likely cause 3 more kills and No Retreat will kill off the last guy several times over. However, just re-rolling 3 means 1 more kill, 3 guys doing retalitory fire, and then No Retreat will leave just 1 guy in CC with you. Or you could just play it safe and not re-roll any of them.
An interesting thing about Doom is that the rules as written allow a re-roll no matter the first result. So you can re-roll a success just as easily as a failure. Say you just charged a 5-man Marine squad and caused 7 wounds... why not re-roll 4 successful ones? Then you'll likely only kill 4 and stay in CC with the one last guy. The trick is plausible against larger units, but trickier to predict as the stacked negatives to Ld or number of No Retreat rolls can add a lot of variables.

3. Multiple Units. Banshees have a notable habit of killing of everything in their path. One protection from this is to engage more than one unit. Creative splitting of attacks can wipe out one entire threat and minimize the return threat of the other. Example: I once charged a unit of 10 Khorne Beserkers and wrapped my assault so that two girls also hit a line of 8 Noise Marines. The Beserkers were wiped out by the other 8 girls, and the Noise Marines lost 2. Fearless hits from No Retreat took down 3 more Noise Marines and I slaughtered the rest on his turn.

4. Cover LOS. Banshees don't really care if they're assaulting in the open or in cover, at least for Initiative. Targets in cover will be slowed by difficult terrain tests, meaning they're less likely to just move out of charge range. Even better, there's also a certain psychology to terrain pieces... many players will leave a unit immobile in a "fortified position" even when it might be more tactically advantageous to back out of the position. This is especially true for pieces of cover on or right near objectives. The nice thing about taking the piece of cover from your opponent is that even if you wipe out the enemy, you'll have the benefit of the cover for yourself. Even better is if the piece of cover and/or a Consolidate move will put you out of LOS from the enemy.

5. Screening LOS. Getting Banshees to where they're needed usually means they're in a Wave Serpent. So what does that tank do after dropping them off? Though it's tempting to scream it off to some other section of the battlefield, I've found it can be quite useful to continue it in support of the Banshees. After the Banshees get out, the tank can still move and shoot. Positioning it just to the side of the unit you're going to charge can screen the Banshees from retalitory fire in a wipe out as well as leaving it conveniently nearby should the Banshees want to embark back in the next turn.

6. Target Selection. WHAT you're attacking should also be a big consideration. For example, 10 Banshees charging Doomed Plague Marines should only kill 5.56 of them.

By using all of the above is how you really maximize the output of your Howling Banshees. Because you can't charge from a moving Wave Serpent, you're having to think a turn ahead for getting them into CC. Isn't it worth it to give a little extra consideration for where they'll be after that?