1st game of 40k - 2vs2 Eldar vs Marines (It went quite well )

[Gapow]

Howdee,

I\'ve not played 40k since 2nd Ed and me and 3 of my friends are looking at starting to play 5th ed. We decided to have a 2vs2 battle, so we could all play the first game together and argue (I mean debate) about the rules.

As Bullitt is on my side, and the other two don\'t come on here I thought I\'d see what people thought about our Eldar strike force. We are using the tournament rules, where each player brings a 500pt force, to join togetehr and make a 1000pt army.

Our forces are as follows:

HQ:Farseer with Doom & Fortune
Troops: 5 x Jetbikes
Elites: 5 x Banshees
Fast Attack: 5 x Warp Spiders
Transport: Wave Serpent

HQ:Farseer with Doom & Guide
Troops: 5 x Rangers
Elites: 5 x Scorpions
Fast Attack: 5 x Swooping Hawks
Heavy Support: Falcon

Plan is to stick the Banshees, Scorpions and Farseers into the Wave Serpent and Falcon then go and give them a good kicking. Using the Hawks and Warp Spiders to deep strike and cause havoc until the elites can close in and hopefully butcher the marines.

I\'m a bit concerned with the lack of troops at our disposal, and unsure abut the Farseer powers, but let me know what you think

 

[evil tendencies]

A little light on the number of bodies on the table. You\'re gonna have to make sure to soften them up with your vehicles before going hand to hand. You guys might want to consider putting those farseers on jetbikes if you can find the points.

 

[Gapow]

Yeah they\'re both maxed out at 500pts, so no room for anything else. Suppose we could leave out an aspect warrior squad and add in some Dire Avengers, what would you leave out? Swooping Hawks?

 

[Necroghast]

I definitely think you need more troops.

 

[Gapow]

Originally posted by Necroghast
I definitely think you need more troops.

Agreed...............................but what would you take out to replace with troops? Whats the least effective against Marines? Normal I\'d only have one HQ but due to tournament rules each 500pt force must have one

 

[redgreen12]

HI THARE

well i havent plaed my eldaer fore long time i an in the verge to up dating it me igo fore a hevy wepens plafom and a E Dreed not and much lager bike swode with a viper or two a fast stike in and out and you shud ras it to 1ooo 5oo fore wimps eges and bacen man you dont whot to be wiped of the bord with grownd trops and thares allways tanks lots of tanks well its up to you GOOD LUCK WKJR

 

[ArsLoqui]

A couple notes:

People have mentioned that you need more troops. I think they\'re suggesting that you need more models in each unit, not more units of Troops. For starters, drop the jetbikes. They\'re incredibly fragile and for the same price you could have 10-12 Guardians with a sweet heavy weapon. This unit is not only more resilient but also more likely to do serious damage than a handful of bikes would be.

Absolutely no reason to take two powers on a Farseer if you haven\'t given him Spirit Stones. I\'m also not crazy about the Doom/Fortune combo. If this Seer is running with the Banshees, consider cutting Fortune to add more models (Exarch?) to that unit.

When you say you plan to \"cause havoc\" with the Spiders and Hawks, it sounds like you\'re using them to draw fire away from your CC elites until they arrive. Given that Spiders and Hawks are two of our most expensive Aspects, I can\'t recommend using them as suicide units. Our skimmers are typically quick enough to get where they need to go without requiring a diversion so I wouldn\'t worry about it. Yes, this means that your valuable transports will take fire. Because of this, unless there\'s a specific reason you want to run a falcon, best drop it for another Wave Serpent which benefits from the Energy Shield.

Furthermore, it is almost never a good idea to deep strike Hawks and Spiders into play. They\'re incredibly quick units, but I find that - for Spiders especially - deep striking them negates their mobility. Yes, they will still be able to warp jump in the assault phase, but what happens if you land deep in enemy territory due to a bad scatter roll and your warp jump doesn’t get you to safety? I can guarantee that your valuable Spiders will be shot to pieces or assaulted. Spiders can’t be used like Terminators to land behind enemy lines and cause all sorts of damage, as they are just not tough enough. They are far too valuable to throw away by risking a deep strike, so stick to using them on foot.

Your Hawks probably won\'t be deep striking into enemy territory, but are more likely going to be dropping grenades and then trying to maintain 18-24\" of distance from the Marines to stay in Lasblaster range. Apologies, but Hawks are going to be useless against Marines. Don\'t get me wrong, I love the models to death, but ain\'t no Marine player scared of a S4 blast template. These guys won\'t pack enough punch to make anywhere near their points back. Instead, why not drop them for a unit of Dark Reapers with an Exarch? Reapers are basically specialist MEQ-killing units and it\'s almost silly not take them here. Take as many models as you can afford, and if you can spare them, a small counterassault unit to take care of your opponent\'s deep-striking nasties.

You don\'t have unit loadouts listed. Are they all just vanilla units? Save the cost of a transport by giving the Scorpions an exarch with a Power weapon and Infiltrate.

For what it\'s worth, this is what I run in 500 pts.:

HQ - 75

Farseer, Guide

Troops - 228

12x Guardians, Brightlance
11x Guardians, Brightlance

Heavy Support - 180

War Walker, 2x Scatter Laser
War Walker, 2x Scatter Laser
War Walker, 2x Scatter Laser

TOTAL = 498

It\'s a take-all-comers list that has never let me down. You park the Farseer with the Walkers, giving you 24 S6 shots that re-roll to hit - this is your anti-infantry. The Brightlances hang out to deal with annoying HQs and the odd armor that slips into low-points lists. You might prefer to switch these out for EML\'s vs. Marines... it\'s your call.

Hope you find some of this helpful!

 

[Gapow]

Thanks for that it\'s given me a lot to think about. The main reason for lack of troops is I don\'t own any apart from the bikes and rangers, so the force was based on what I had to hand.

I\'ll certainly take a lot of your advice on board. The reason for the falcon was to get some heavy weapons and extra transport onto the board, but may ditch it and get some guardians or dire avengers on board. I\'ll be giving the scorpions the exrach as i have a model with a scorpions claw.

I have some dark reapers but they\'re so damn expensive, so thought they\'d take up too much of a 500pt force, I\'ll have to have a re-think on those

 

[Gapow]

Ok how\'s about this?

HQ - Farseer with Doom
Troops - 10 Guardians with brightlance
Elites - 5 x Banshees
Fast Attack - 5 x Warp Spiders
Wave Serpent

HQ - Farseer with Guide and a Singing Spear
Troops - 5 x Ranger Pathfinders
Troops- 10 x Dire Avengers inc Exarch with Diresword and Bladestorm
Elites - 5 x Scorpions inc Exarch with Scorpions claw and infiltrate.
Heavy Support - War Walker with Scatter Laser.

Banshees and Farseer with Doom hop in Wave Serpent as before, the Rangers are now supported by the War Walker and the Scorpions which infiltrate. The farseer with guide stays with the Dire Avengers and guardians who provide fire support/defense. Warp Spiders will no longer deep strike and will provide support where needed.

Does that sounds better? Although your 500pt army sounds awesome, I naturally want to try my own ideas out

 

[Gapow]

Well due to the fact my opponent didnt know he had to pay for the weapons in his devastator squad and it should cost 180pts not 90pts, he ended up with about 1300pts. I had the below force and also commandeered his baharoth figure he had in his case, I know that gave us 3 HQ but it was the only thing on hand to balance the pounts out.

HQ - Farseer with Doom
Troops - 10 Guardians with brightlance
Elites - 6 x Banshees
Fast Attack - 5 x Warp Spiders,inc Exarch with power claws and Exarch death spinner
Wave Serpent with twin linked scatter laser.

HQ - Farseer with Guide
Troops- 10 x Dire Avengers inc Exarch with Diresword and Bladestorm
Elites - 5 x Scorpions inc Exarch with Scorpions claw and infiltrate.
Heavy Support - 4 x Dark Reapers

We kicked arse 10-3, or 8-3 if the transport rhino\'s dont count as a point,(do they??) Highlights of the match were destroying his dreadnough in h2h combat with my farseer and blowing up the rhino with my wave serpent (I only had two rolls on the damage chart and got 6 both times, jammy sod!)

Glad I took the reapers as they shot down a tactical squad before getting slaughtered by dante in the final turn.

The game took 6hrs, and didnt finish till 2am but we all enjoyed it. At least we\'ve learnt a load of rules and no doubt our next game will be a lot quicker.

Part of the reason for the easy defeat is our opponent only had vanilla troops, no power swords or plasma pistols on his assault squads, no special weapons in his combat squads, not even a storm bolter on the rhinos, think I\'ll give him a hand with his army list next time!