Warhammer 40,000/2nd Edition Tactics/Eldar
Why Play Eldar
Bright colours! Insane abilities! Never worry about a tank again! Eldar are the army where basically every unit has its own set of crazy rules, making your army very exciting to play, as well as to look at, with the wonderfully varied colour schemes. In 2nd edition there is no requirement to take any guardians at all, so your entire army can be aspect warriors, or you can make your whole force guardians... if you want to lose horribly I guess? Or kit them all out with shuriken catapults and wield more sustained fire dice than you can possibly keep track of the jams for.
Special Rules
Unit Analysis
Characters
- Avatar:
If you don't have the Dark Millennium expansion, the avatar MUST be in your force. You don't get a choice. Only playing 1000 points? Congratulations, 30% of your force is now this guy. He's not *quite* as good as a bloodthirster in close combat, and without the wings he's not as fast. He's still very intimidating, however, so expect him to immediately draw all heavy weapon fire his way. Hiding him until you've gotten rid of the heavy weapons also isn't an option, as he's not particularly fast, and whilst he has a ranged attack it only reaches 12" and has no template, so you're going to need to have him running across the table. It's also 2nd edition, so even if he gets into close combat, he's only going to be able to fight 1 or 2 guys at a time, if they even stick around to fight him, considering he causes Terror. In short, whilst he's an awesome model, he's pretty useless and a waste of points.
- Farseer:
This is your only other option for a commander, other than Eldrad, who is just a more expensive farseer. The much better option, Farseer's are rad. Basically a space marine captain if the captain could kill enemies with his mind from across the table. You may be tempted to load your boss man up with loads of wargear, but honestly they don't really need it. Give him a force weapon and a laspistol and watch him wreck house just as is. They're not unkillable though, so best to give them an honour guard. Not wraithguard though, as they'll slow him down. Striking Scorpions are actually quite a good choice here.
- Exarch:
Oddly, whilst most armies have champion, mighty champion and hero, aspect warriors just have one choice. Exarchs are your hero unit and can be fully customised, with a range of great... and not so great... abilities and specialist equipment. You can add them to a squad, such as the howling banshees, to make that squad much more brutal in close combat (helpful against big opponents like tyranid monstrosities or dreadnaughts) or just give them swooping hawk wings or a warp spider jump pack and let them run riot on their own, which is honestly even better. Hard for that devestator squad to blow up your avatar when an exarch just warped into hand to hand with them. At 50 points base cost, they don't break the bank either. Just be cautious not to overload them with gear, they can easily triple in cost.
- Warlock:
Your lesser psykers. Useful to scatter around in bigger battles, but considering you've most likely already had to take a farseer, how much psychic power do you really need? They are also good to attach to groups of wraithguard for a little boost, if you can get them into combat that is.
- Exodite Lord:
Again, if you're flash enough to have one of these guys, please pipe up.
- Pirate Captain:
Basically a guardian hero. A cool idea, but as with the pirates themselves, a bit pointless.
- Great Harlequin:
A super hard harlequin. An absolute menace in close combat, causing fear and melting people's insides with his harlequin's kiss. He's fully designed around close combat, so get him stuck in, and quickly. If your whole army is harlequins, you can have this guy as your commander, making him the eldar's cheapest option for a commander!
- Shadowseer:
A harlequin psyker as powerful as a farseer! A bit... random, but the mini is cool. Unfortunately a bit more expensive than a farseer, especially as unless you're fielding an entirely harlequin army you will almost definitely already have a level 4 psyker on the table, but if you like that psychic life, I'd rather take this guy than a second farseer. If you *are* fielding an entirely harlequin army, you only have a very small choice of units so you may as well take him.
- Solitaire:
A harlequin with a crazy, better in close combat than a space marine captain stat line who can't join a squad and is immune to all psychological effects. Run this guy across the table at the enemy commander and watch them redirect all their efforts to keeping the two of them apart. At only 93 points, he's actually quite cheap for his terrifying stat line!
- Death Jester:
What if we gave a harlequin, a close combat fighter, a giant fuck-off shuriken cannon that can also make people into walking bombs sometimes? Wh..what? Awkward as all hell this guy is. Firstly, he's the only heavy weapon option for a harlequin army and his weapon can't penetrate a lubed up bike exhaust, let alone a rhino's hull. Instead he's good at murdering normal troops, but he costs 125 points and that is a LOT for a shuriken cannon! Again, however, if you're fielding harlequins you might as well as you don't have many troop options. If you're not, maybe leave him behind.
Special Characters
- Asurmen:
If you told me 'Asurmen' was Eldar for 'John Smith' I would not be surprised. An utterly boring character with nothing interesting about him. He's supposed to be the most eldary eldar, I guess, which explains why he carries THREE shuriken weapons. The two shuriken pistols are especially dumb as he can't fire both and he has a two handed sword. Don't take this guy. Take someone fun. He's not even cheap!
- Jain Zar:
Jair Zar specialises in two things, murdering fools and, weirdly, clearing out gretchin screens. Her wailing death can Xena warrior princess its way through as many gretchin as you can roll hits. This, however, as funny as it probably is to watch, is a total waste of her time. With only a modifiable save, the moment Jain breaks cover she is going to get lit up like a christmas tree. If you do manage to get her into combat (not THAT hard as she can run 14" and jump a further 4") she'll kill whatever she fights, as her banshee mask prevents the enemy from rolling on the first, and sometimes second, turn, and after that their fumbles count double and she has two parries, so she just dismantles whoever she fights in short order. At 132 points, however, she dies very quickly, so oddly it's actually best to use her defensively. Keep her safe out of sight in a strategic location and the enemy won't want to approach within 18" of it. Good for area control. Just be aware she will likely only live one turn out of cover.
- Karandras:
A more standard character than Jain, at least Karanadras can take a displacer field to try and keep him alive. In a weird reversal situation with Jain Zar, Karandras is probably better on offense, as his extra defensive abilities mean he might actually make it to the enemy intact. His Scorpion's Kiss is actually really great at dealing with tougher enemies, and anything that survives into close combat with him he can wallop with his power fist. Not quite the same level of close combat monstrosity as Jain, but much more survivable, especially with a toughness of 6.
- Fuegan:
Fuegan is an odd cookie. He tries to be both great in close combat and great at range and ends up pretty good at both, but he can only do one at a time, so he doesn't perform as well as the phoenix lords who focus on just one. Fuegan is an anti-armour specialist, which in an army with swooping hawks is largely redundant. The one area he does shine though is dreadnaughts, as the hawks struggle with them, whereas he can take them on at range or close up. Or, you know, you could just buy some dark reapers like a normal person. Fuegs is also crippled by the fact he has to take his pike and axe instead of any kind of forcefield, so he's really frail.
- Baharroth:
Baharroth is so cool, but god damn that mini's wings would not stay on. He's a great assassin, due to the wings letting him drop on anyone in the battlefield on turn 2. Being forced to take the lasblaster makes him expensive though, and he's not as effective in h2h as Jain. Still, a good contender for best phoenix lord just due to the wings, as getting the others into combat alive is their biggest problem. Oh and he has a wargear slot for a displacer field. Always good.
- Maugan Ra:
A phoenix lord with a heavy weapon that's also a close combat weapon? Maugan is pretty cool, but again somewhat unfocused. His weapon is move and fire, which is nice, and can't jam, which is great, but do you really buy characters to shoot at normal troops? He works better than Fuegan at least, as he's a bit more shooting focused, with his close combat abilities being more 'if he gets charged he doesn't instantly die' kind of thing. Not sure where you would buy Maugs over troops though. For the cost of him you could get, like, 15 guardians with shuriken catapults. That's a lot of catapult. Again, he has a slot for a displacer field, so he's in the upper tier of phoenix lords.
- Eldrad:
It's hard to justify Eldrad. He's a worse, more expensive Farseer, but he gets an extra strategy card? How much is a strategy card worth? Normally not much. He has great lore, but he's slow and weak, and costs like 32 points more than a bog standard farseer, so unless you really love strategy cards for some reason, just take one of those and call him Eldrad. You can even give him the neat staff thing.
Core
- Guardians:
Your basic 11 point guardian is... not great. A civilian with a lasgun and mesh armour they're barely better than a guardsman. However, for just 3 extra points you can give them a shuriken catapults and holy hell suddenly it's party time. A squad of 5 guardians with shuriken catapults gets 5 sustained fire dice between them. That's up to 15 shots at strength 4 with a -2 save modifier, +1 to hit at close range. These things massacre guardsmen and space marines don't fare much better either. You can technically arm guardians with anything, but... well... don't. Just do this. They're a much more cost effective option than...
- Dire Avengers:
22 points is a lot when you can get a guardian with a shuriken catapult for 14. Dire avengers don't get any special rules, their armour is just 4+ and their stats aren't massively better than a guardian's. Not really sure why you'd take them really.
- Fire Dragons:
Melta guns for most armies are a sort of defensive anti-tank weapon given to the occasional specialist. Eldar say fuck that give a whole squad the things and have them run at the enemy. Melta guns are horrifically powerful against infantry, good against enemy armour (get into hand to hand with a tank and watch it cook in one shot) and can even melt greater demons with ease. The only downside is the range. Good job you're fast and well armoured! If the enemy lets a squad of these lunatics close enough to shoot at them they deserve whatever they get.
- Dark Reapers:
Aspect warriors with missile launchers and targeters. No other heavy weapon options. A bit... inflexible, but at least it's not like space marines where you have to take a squad of ten, only arm four with heavy weapons, then have six more sitting around bored eating up points. Deploy in squads of 3.
- Swooping Hawks:
So swooping hawks have two things going for them. They have their wings, and they have both krak and frag grenades that they can drop whilst flying over people. The idea is to get them jumping from cover to cover across the battlefield dropping grenades on enemy fortifications. In practise, however, this is only moderately effective. The best use for them is much, much sillier. They have a second ability, which lets them 'fly up' on one turn, then come down anywhere on the battlefield on the next turn. Great for ambushing heavy weapon squads? Well, sure, but swooping hawks aren't actually great at that. Instead, drop them in close combat with tanks. Krak grenades, when used in close combat, get a huge armour penetration boost, though probably still not enough to penetrate most tank hull, but you're in close combat so you can choose to go for the tracks instead. Watch as your 104 point squad of swooping hawks effortlessly takes out a Leman Russ Demolisher, or a land raider full of terminators. Broken as hell.
- Howling Banshees:
Okay so their banshee masks are amazing, as their movement speed of 6 means that they outpace most other foot troops, pretty much guaranteeing them a charge, which gives them a round of close combat where their opponents can't roll dice, so are most likely going to get carved up by half a dozen power sword hits a piece. Even without their mask's ability, they're still great in close combat, rocking two attacks and a parry at WS 4 and hitting at strength 5 with a -3 save modifier they carve through space marines about as easily as they do guardsmen. However, because of this they are often seen as enemy #1 by your opponent and aren't that survivable outside of hand to hand. With only laspistols, they're not going to kill anything at all at range, and their armour is only 4+. Get them into close combat as soon as you can. These are your troops you send against the enemy's assault troops to cripple them. Heck, charge their characters if you can, half a dozen power sword hits will down almost anything that doesn't cause terror.
- Shining Spears:
Ah, well, you see when 2nd edition was actually available these guys didn't have models. Or a design. Or any real lore. They were an afterthought, really. Lots of people made them using Brettonian knights arms stuck on a guardian jetbike, but the truth is they were kind of rubbish. A half baked idea. Trying to get a jetbike into close combat in 2nd edition was a flipping nightmare. Even more of a waste of points than normal jetbikes.
- Striking Scorpions:
If Howling Banshees are the frail, quick, pure close combat monsters who specialise in taking down the hardest opponents, striking scorpions are the Yin to their Yang. Tougher, slower, better at (short) range but lacking the hitting power against tougher opponents, striking scorpions are also different from Howling Banshees in that they're a bit pants. Instead of turning anyone they charge into a sitting duck for a round, the scorpions mask, or 'mandiblasters' shoots them with a crappy little zap when you get into combat with them. Against anything with armour the chances of it actually hurting them are stupidly low, but against cheap, poorly armoured enemies like guardsmen or orcs, they're fantastic, especially on defence. When that gretchin shield swarms you and almost none of them actually reach close combat, it's a nice feeling. This is pretty rare though, as most commanders will try to avoid charging the aspect warriors with chainswords and just shoot them instead. Banshees are best for most opponents, but scorpions can be okay against weaker, more numerous enemies.
- Warp Spiders:
Would win the award for unit with most special rules, if not for the wraithguard. Armed with monofilament nets and teleport devices that mean you can never take them against chaos or they'll just turn into demons, they're experts at clearing out large numbers of poorly armoured enemies with their one weird trick. Orks hate them! They are quite expensive though, so unless you're certain what you're up against they're a tough sell. Especially when a single exarch with the dual spinners can probably do the job.
- Eldar Scouts:
Your infiltration unit, but unfortunately they've got the guardian stat line. More good for delaying enemy movement than doing any actual damage, at least they've got needle rifles instead of lasguns. This makes them ideal against tough, poorly armoured enemies who want to close in on you (ORKS you fool! ORKS!). Decent value for the points.
- Exodite Dragon Knights:
Look, if you know anyone who was flash enough to kitbash a squad of these together and actually *use* them, get them to write this bit.
- Eldar Pirates:
You know all those spare bits and pieces of guardians and so on you have in your bits box, along with a totally random assortment of weapons? Why not assemble them into what are basically disorganised guardians? Pirates are fun, and I'm glad they're there, but if you ever actually fielded these for tactical reasons I'd love to hear why. The only thing I can think of is if you wanted to make a hand to hand squad with a guardian stat line without paying for lasguns? Look, stop being weird and just take some banshees already. I like space elf pirates too, but they're not worth taking in a serious game.
- Wraithguard:
Slow, with a very short range gun, wraithguard are not great. Especially frustrating is that, whilst reasonably tough with their armour value instead of toughness (making them basically immune to lasgun fire), if they get knocked down, rather than destroyed, the rest of the squad has to maintain squad coherency, meaning they all have to wait a turn for the dipshit who fell over to get back up, so they're probably going to get shot to hell again. Super expensive, slow and easily avoided, you can't even stick these guys in a frigging transport as they take up 2 slots each and you have to take at least 5! The only eldar transport takes 6 minis max, so you'll need an allied rhino or something to carry them. If you DO get them into range prepare for some hilarity as you teleport that bloodthirster into the ground 50 feet below your best squad and blow them up, or 100 feet above the wraithguard and watch him flatten them. They look cool, but don't take them. Oh and they go blind if all the other eldar die, so your opponent doesn't even actually NEED to fight them.
- Harlequins
Technically their own section, like support, you can only take up to 25% harlequins. Or you can take ONLY harlequins. A bit odd that. Never mind. These guys are yet another great eldar close combat squad. Their holo-suits mean they are at -1 to hit. This is in addition to the -1 for hitting them when they run 10" or more, so -2 to hit already before taking cover, range etc into account. You can also give them refractor fields, and this is a tough call. On the one hand a 5+ unmodifiable save is pretty decent, but at 6 points a model it kind of depends on how much kit you're giving them as to how worth it that is. I normally did give them the fields, but remember they can't really hide when wearing them.
Once in close combat, harlequins will tear your opponents a new one, with their holo-fields reducing enemy WS, their masks causing fear and their weapon selection being pretty horrific. Harlequin's kiss against enemies with high toughness/wounds instead of great armour is brutal. Less so against terminators. Harlequins are a lot of fun and can be either charged straight down a flank with light cover without much concern over incoming fire, or without refractor fields you can hide them in an important structure and ambush whoever gets close again without much risk.
Oddly enough you can mount them on jetbikes. No-one really did that though.
Support
- Allies:
The problem with allies for eldar is they have to keep up. The best choice for this, then, is imperial guard armour, as they actually fill a role in your army normally missing. If you need a big heavy lump of metal to hide behind as your banshees advance, maybe make it a tough mon'kee one instead of a dainty hovertank. Don't take space marines. This is second edition. Space marines are terrible in second edition.
- Dreadnought:
Your pretty much standard can fight a bit, can shoot a bit big mech, except they go blind if no living eldar are left. Not particularly great to be honest, they have weak armour and make big, tempting targets. War walkers are probably better.
- Anti-Grav Platform:
You can get some really bonkers, orky-ass weapons on these ant-grav platforms. You can also get some relatively normal, sensible weapons. The scatter laser is great for mowing down troops 6 at a time. The lascannon and heavy plasma are the anti-tank workhorses you've come to expect. The D-Cannon and the vibrocannon though are both completely nuts.
First, the D-Cannon. When you absolutely, positively, have to do... something... to... somebody? This thing doesn't roll to hit. It just scatters TWICE. Considering the max range of this thing is 32", this means the chances of it hitting the enemy instead of your troops is more or less 50/50. Anything it does hit is probably destroyed entirely! Great for tanks, greater demons etc. Or maybe it's not destroyed. There is a non-zero chance this weapon will kill the person who fires it by dropping an upside down Chimera on them from 200ft. This is an *Eldar* weapon?!? This is probably better sat on a dreadnaught's shoulder doing a mad one-robot charge than a grav platform.
Vibrocannon is not quite as silly, but still pretty silly. You choose somewhere between you and 72" away. You scatter once, then hit everyone between you and that point. That's actually pretty great, but you have to consider that the grav platform is not going to be part of your advance team, so your soldiers might be between it and its target. So instead, get several of these, plant them on one flank and just light that side of the table up with grav nonsense whilst your troops advance down the other side. No roll to hit, just one scatter. A much better weapon than the d-cannon, at least for a stationary platform.
Anti-grav platforms on the whole are cheap, have cool fun weapons and can be really useful. Sometimes you don't need a whole squad of Dark Avengers, you just need one lascannon. Here it is.
- War Walker:
Two heavy weapons and one guardian on two spindly legs to fire them. Good for getting some weapon variety out there. The main problem with this is it's still a guardian firing the guns, so keep that in mind. Thankfully he's got a force field with a 2+ save, but a single round of bolter fire could probably take him out no problem. Stand him at the back and use him as a rapid-redeployment heavy weapons platform. Useless in close combat, so keep some troops near him to shield him. It won't work, but you can always hope.
- Jetbike:
Eldar love them some jetbikes. Jetbikes aren't that great though. You can have twin-linked shuriken catapults or a shuriken cannon, but at the end of the day you've got less protection than the average dirt biker, so don't expect much from these guys. Try not to let them get too far ahead of the main forces as any kind of attention will almost certainly down them in short order. Probably best used to harry heavy weapon positions, hoping to survive through force of numbers, but swooping hawks are much better at dealing with that.
- Vyper:
A jetbike with a bigger heavy weapon and more armour. A cool model and probably more useful than a normal jetbike, but they do tend to get focused down quite fast. If you can keep them out of line of sight of the big heavy weapons though, vypers can be great. A lot easier to use as well as they can shoot outside of their forward arc. You can also replace the heavy weapon with a spot for a character for... some reason? Not really sure on this one. Maybe to get Karandras into combat faster? Or surprise someone with Jain Zar flying at them at 35" on turn 1? I don't think it will work but you do you.
- Falcon grav tank:
Released after the codex, this tank did it all. Sustained fire lascannon? Check. Scatter laser? Check. Obligatory shuriken weapon? Check. Troop transport? Check. Pity the thing was so sodding big it was a pain to get around the battlefield. Luckily it's a skimmer, so it can go over stuff, but finding a place to set the model down is going to be your biggest problem. The stupid 'only 6 people' transport restriction also prevents it from transporting wraithguard or harlequins, which sucks. You can even swap out the weapons for even heavier ones if you want to really paint a target on it, not that it will need it, as it is hardly the heaviest armoured vehicle in the game. Your best bet here is to charge it forward and rip anything with a gun bigger than a bolter apart before they do the same to you. Good luck!
- Fire Prism
A falcon with a 2" template lascannon and basically nothing else. A gimmick of a tank, to be quite honest, released immediately prior to 3rd edition launching, so barely used by anybody. Probably quite fun to float around blatting people with, like a super-fast basilisk.
Tactics
Hey you know what almost all Eldar have? A movement stat of at least 5. You know what that means? If they run, it's -1 to hit them. This is very important, as Eldar are much more reliant on not being hit than their armour. They also have loads of squads who are great in close combat and hand to hand, and very few who are good mid-range. Use your long range weapons on your weapons platforms and Dark Reapers to lay down covering fire and get in close for the kill. If you stand still you lose that -1 and you die, so run, run, run!
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