Eldar 1500- Mech Dragon Heavy

[Tarrandus]

It seems everytime I see Eldar in action it makes me want to play them. They're cool, they're fast, and they have awesome tanks. I finally decided to sit down and design an Eldar list, and eventually get an army.


I really like the Eldar vehicles, so of course I want a mech list. I also really like the fire dragons. Meltaguns on every model? Hell yes! Maybe the wise eldar players can show me differently, but I never understood why they're usually takeen in such small squads. Sure a small squad can kill a tank, but a big squad can chew through termies, or even normal marines like crazy. I decided I wanted a big quad, and since I have this list building OCD about taking everything in pairs, I added a second. I went with Eldrad as my HQ since he seems to have the most psychic smack down for the points. He's seems really versatile, but I'm thinking he may be a bit much for a medium sized list like this.

So, here it is:

HQ
Eldrad 210


Elites
9 Fire Dragons .................................................. .......... 144
........Wave Serpent: Star Engines- TL Shuriken cannon 115

9 Fire Dragons .................................................. .......... 144
........Wave Serpent: Star Engines- TL Shuriken cannon 115

Troops
10 Dire Avengers; Exarch, Double Shuricat, Bladestorm 152
........Wave Serpent: Star Engines- TL Shuriken cannon ..115

10 Dire Avengers; Exarch, Double Shuricat, Bladestorm 152
........Wave Serpent: Star Engines- TL Shuriken cannon ..115

HS
Fire Prism; 115
Fire Prism; 115

Total: 1492/1500

HQ- 210
Elites- 288
Troops- 304
Vehicles- 690

Pretty basic, but a lot of firepower and tough tanks. The basic strategy would be a flank rush. If I go first, spread the tanks out to get the opponent to do the same, and then use Eldrad to consolidate them on a weak flank. Rush 36" up the first turn, landing right next to a cluster I think I can wipe in one turn. Weather any fire, then drop off everything. Scoot the Serpents up in fornt of my target cluster, screening my models from the bulk of the rest of the army. Then, unleash doomed and guided bladestorm/melta hell. A big chunk of his army lies dead, and my squishy models are protected by a wall of steel. Hop back in the serpents, and repeat.

[Kelmon]

NEVER ever let your tanks go without spirit stones ... otherwise this will crush your army concept ...

[Tarrandus]

Care to back up that statement? :D Spirit stones help on only 1/6th of the vehicle damage results, even on glancing hits. Anything else, is not going to be affected by it. Is it really worth dropping stuff to help with a results I'll get maybe once or twice? Equiping all of my vehicles is quite a hefty chunk of points. I'm just not seeing the cost/benefit ratio being very good.

If I do take them, do I drop star engines, model count, or exarch upgrades to fit them in? I'm thinking exarch+upgrades. Bladestorm is cool and all but it does lower the overall amount of shooting the Avengers can do, and I really like the 36" from the engines.

[eagleboy7259]

Care to back up that statement? Spirit stones help on only 1/6th of the vehicle damage results, even on glancing hits.

Err... What now? I thought that Spirit Stones forced the enemy to roll two dice and choose the lower of the results when rolling for the vehicle damage table. A 4-6 kills any Eldar Tank. I might have the spirit stone effect wrong not being an Eldar player and all but I thought I was pretty sure thats how it worked. Can you show us how you came to that conclusion?

[Tarrandus]

Spirit Stones is the same as Extra Armour, it downgrades Stunned to Shaken

What you're talking about is Holo-fields. :)

[eagleboy7259]

Haha wow... I apologize for that.

[Tarrandus]

I've been kicking around the idea of a serpent mounted seer council. I like the idea, even if it wouldn't be the most effective thing there is. I tried to squeeze them and all the fire dragons into the same list. Preseting the 'Tarrandus tried to squeeze too much in too small of an army so he couldn't afford any upgrades list.'

HQ
Farseer; Fortune, Doom, Stones 130
5 Warlocks ;Enhance x1, Destructor x4 180
.....Wave Serpent: TL Shuriken cannon 100
Elites
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....Wave Serpent: TL Shuriken cannon 100
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....in Falcon
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....in Falcon
Troops
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent: TL Shuriken cannon 100
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent: TL Shuriken cannon 100
HS
Falcon-Scatter Laser 130
Falcon-Scatter Laser 130

Total: 1498

Basically I dropped Eldrad and all the upgrades to put in a small but torchy council, and switched the prisms out for falcons, which will carry the dragons squads which I split into smaller units. Leaving everything at the bare minimum.

I'm expecting you all will say this will suck, which is what I'm afraid of, but it would certainly be fun. 6 tanks? check. 4 really killy units? check? Ramming it down the opponents throat? check. http://www.heroscapers.com/community/images/smilies/thumb.gif

I suppose I could drop 3 dragons and a couple destructors and buy my tanks some defenses. But what would the point of that be? :p:D

[awesomebob]

I must say that i like this iteration of your list much better than the first although im not sure why. Maybe i just have a distaste for Eldrad. Ive used him a few times but he always turned out to be sound and fury signifying nothing.

I used to run a council in a serpent but i could never get much more than a tarpit effect out of them which is just not my style.

Falcons are awesome with holofields but without them they are pretty much just a rhino with some big guns.

I think you might be overestimating the potential of fire dragons. they are excellent can openers. But if you shoot 6 dragons at a 10man tac squad, lets say you get real lucky and kill 5 of them, there is no way you can survive the retaliation the next turn so youve traded one of your elite units for 5 marines. not a good trade.

You really should consider spirit stones all around. It seems that you're going for an in-your-face sort of list which i like. but just wait until a wave serpent or two is stunned in your opponents backfield. The wave serpent cost a buttload of points for two reasons: one - they are more durable than a land raider from ranged weaponry, two - they MOVE. If a wave serpent is incapable of moving for a turn it loses the entire purpose of its existence.

Remember Mechdar is about patience. Always hit them first and make sure you hit them so hard they cannot recover.

[Tarrandus]

I think you might be overestimating the potential of fire dragons. they are excellent can openers. But if you shoot 6 dragons at a 10man tac squad, lets say you get real lucky and kill 5 of them, there is no way you can survive the retaliation the next turn so youve traded one of your elite units for 5 marines. not a good trade.

That's why I don't shoot it with 6 dragons, I shoot it with 18. :D I definitely don't plan on using my dragons as a suicide force. They have serpents to shield them from the bulk of enemy fire, and 18 dragons kills an average of 10 marines per shooting phase. They arn't going to be rushing around hoping to score some kills, they are going to be working with the rest of my army.



You really should consider spirit stones all around. It seems that you're going for an in-your-face sort of list which i like. but just wait until a wave serpent or two is stunned in your opponents backfield. The wave serpent cost a buttload of points for two reasons: one - they are more durable than a land raider from ranged weaponry, two - they MOVE. If a wave serpent is incapable of moving for a turn it loses the entire purpose of its existence.

You convinced me, Stones it is. I could shave some models off squads to try and fit them in, but I think I'll just drop the council. They were just an idea, and I'm not sure if they are worth thier 200 point price tag in such a small and fragile squad.

HQ
Farseer; Fortune, Doom, Stones 130

Elites
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....Wave Serpent; Spirit Stones-TL Shuriken cannon 110
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....in Falcon
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....in Falcon
Troops
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent; Spirit Stones-TL Shuriken cannon 110
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent; Spirit Stones-TL Shuriken cannon 110
HS
Falcon; Holo-fields, Spirit Stones-Scatter Laser 175
Falcon; Holo-fields, Spirit Stones-Scatter Laser 175

Total: 1338, 162 left

So, 162 points after dropping the council and their serpent and adding holo-fields and stones. I'm not sure what to do with it. Serpent + 5 Avengers? any other ideas?

[Dunadan]

Fire Prism >:-)>

[Tarrandus]

Fire Prism >:-)>

Maybe. I had them in my original list, but I'm starting to not like the idea of a prism. The prism is a long range fire support tank, and my list is built mainly around close range firepower. It just seems odd to be rushing 5 serpents/falcons right up to their lines and leaving one tank just sitting in the back shooting. If I'm going to play Eldar, might as well specialize. I'd rather have the extra serpent as an immediate threat rather than a prism.

The two choices I was considering were a serpent and 5 avengers for another scoring choice, or going back to Eldrad and buying some weapon upgrades, or maybe exarch/bladestorm. I dunno though, I'm kind of at a loss as to what the best use of the points is.

EDIT: Now I'm thinking of just chucking Prince Yriel in there and calling it a list. I had skimmed his rules earlier, but now I read them and realized what an epic marine killer he is. Doom a tac sqaud and throw Yriel at it. Open up the eye of pie platage and boom!, Yriel just made his points back. :D

Each marine has a mere 1/36 chance to live. He'd also be good for when my dragons or avengers can't quite finish off whatever they're shooting. 5 wound on +2 power attacks says whatever is left is going down. Only problem is keeping him alive.

[Ghoulio]

Yeah, Yriel is a beast. His pros greatly out weigh his cons. In one round of hand to hand combat I had him kill 23 without number termigaunts (12 on the initial blast, then another 11 on the overkill). In 4 games at 2000pts I didnt have him die a single game eithe :) GO YRIEL!!!

[Tarrandus]

So, this is what it look like now. I had 7 points, so I dropped Stones on one of the Serpents for Star Engines. You never know when you might need that extra 12" for contesting or something, and I think its a good enough of a trade off to not have stones on one serpent.

HQ
Farseer; Fortune, Doom, Stones 130
Prince Yriel 155

Elites
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....Wave Serpent;TL Shuriken cannon 100

6 Fire Dragons 96
..... in Falcon
6 Fire Dragons 96
.....in Falcon
Troops
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent; Star engines, Spirit Stones--TL Shuriken cannon 125
10 Dire Avengers 120
.....Wave Serpent; Spirit Stones-TL Shuriken cannon 110
HS
Falcon; Holo-fields, Spirit Stones-Scatter Laser 175
Falcon; Holo-fields, Spirit Stones-Scatter Laser 175

Total: 1498

HQ: 285
Elites: 288
Troops: 240
Transports: 335
HS: 350

Pretty evenly split up, if a little light on troops. But if my opponents decides to shoot my avengers, that means he aint shooting the dragons, and I'll just go ahead an table him. :D

[Cruor Vault]

I'm going to have to disagree with everyone about the addition of Spirit Stones to all the tanks.

I'm not saying they are not good, but what I am saying is that they fall under the same category Extra Armor in with 5th edition.

Which is to say, interesting but not terribly efficient. The changes made to the vehicle damage tables means that you are far more likely to get Crew Shaken over Crew Stunned. By adding modifiers to the table and having results of 1 or less and 6 or better you make upgrades like Extra Armor less useful. When a Serpent takes a glancing hit (likely given the Power Field) a result of Crew Shaken will come up fully half the time, while a Stunned Result can only ever come up 1/6 of the time. Back in 4th when Skimmers always moved enough to get the SMF bonus and there were no modifiers to the damage charts a downgrade from Stunned to Shaken was a good call. But nowadays with Skimmers more likely to take a Penetrating hit and the aforementioned results on the glancing table a 10-15pt upgrade/tank is not all that great an option. Certainly not with 5-6 tanks on the table. If you took off all the stones thats roughly the cost of a Viper right? Or another set of more useful upgrades, like better weapons on the Serpents, since Falcons and Serpents are only BS 3 but Serpents are Linked they tend to (in my experience) perform most of the ranged tank hunting in the army.

[Duke]

Im going to throw in my 2 cents.

I have a lot of experience with Eldar and I never use spirit stones, mostly for a lot of the reasons CV just gave.

I like Yriel in a transport, but you might want to consider a second farseer. Possibly a guide/ fortune seer. I have found that Dragons are often "once and done," troops but with a second seer they will live a bit better. that said I don't think Yriel is inherently a bad choice.

Do your avengers have BS? or a Exarch? It also seems that your dragons don't... I can see the dragons not having an exarch, but I really think a cheap exarch is always nice when you really really need to wipe out a unit.

I would like to hear how this list performs. Even though I am a big fan of Avengers in Serpents I think this list is interesting.

Duke

[Tarrandus]

So, mixed opinion on stones. I guess I'll just have to play around with them once I've got the army built, see if they are worth it. Having points for some better tank weapons sounds pretty good though.


Do your avengers have BS? or a Exarch? It also seems that your dragons don't... I can see the dragons not having an exarch, but I really think a cheap exarch is always nice when you really really need to wipe out a unit.

Both the Avangers and the Dragons are vanilla. The Dragons I didn't see a point since their powers aren't that useful. The Avengers I just didn't have the points. For me BS/Exarch isn't a top priority if I've got extra to spend.


I would like to hear how this list performs. Even though I am a big fan of Avengers in Serpents I think this list is interesting.

Wait till after Christmas and I'm sure I'll be able to give some battle reports. :D

[Duke]

Dropping the stones will go a long way to affording some exarchs.

You may want to look at throwing in a vyper or two with star cannons...

[Tarrandus]

Switch Stones for Exarchs +BS, roger.



You may want to look at throwing in a vyper or two with star cannons...
Lol wut? :D I'd imagine the need for star cannons is covered by the pulse lasers, or the 18 fire dragons. I don't think MCs, Terminators, or tanks are going to be a problem. The only thing I don't think I can handle is orks. :)