Eldar Strategy: The relative poverty of the arrogant

[Laplace's Demon]

Oh so arrogant

Disclaimer: This is all with 3v3 in mind by the way. Some may apply to 1v1 but I leave that to 1v1 experts.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is intended to be read as wishlisting. The sole point of interest is how to achieve results, given what Eldar have at their disposal.

As with all factions, there are challenges which must be overcome in order to win. One of the challenges we eldar players must figure out is the faction's relative lack of options.

Inflammatory you ask? Perhaps, but ask, my eldar brothers and sisters, do eldar have access to long range artillery in T2? Do we have T1 jump troops? Do we have access to flamers? Do we have access to long-range, snaring AV? What about dedicated t2 melee infantry? (start the petition for a cc weapon upgrade for the wraithguard. They exist in the tabletop and are oh-so-cool! )

None that come to mind.

We know that our enemies do, the list is below.

So the challenge for us is to figure out how to achieve the same effect that these options provide their factions without actually having units for it. To get started, this post will examine what these deficits mean for us tactically, explore ideas to overcome them, and provide a space for discussion.


List

SM- plasma devs/ whirlwind/ Assault marines/ flamers on tacs
Chaos - Grenade launchers/ up-gradable noise marines/ noise marines/ raptors,
IG: Manti/ catachan ol' reliable/ guardsman flamers (also no jump troops),
Orks - stikk bommas/ tank busta barrages/storm boys/ burnas,
Nids: zoanthropes, raveners, (flamers?)
Grey knights: grenade launchers/ teleporting assault troops, blue flame weapons etc (i don't know their names off hand).




1. Long range arillery (before t3)

The lack of long-range artillery before T3 carries some implications which we cannot ignore.

Firstly, it forces us into closer engagements with our very squishy troops.... which is not ideal. Given the close range of our t2 infantry (fire dragons, wraith guard, warp spiders (snare nade, which is big reason you got them)), we must always be prepared to counter melee units who will try to tie them up to prevent them from firing. None of these infantry options are good in melee, which requires the use of suppression or deterrence more than our opponents. This makes shuriken cannons pretty much an auto-take. Rangers cannot provide reliable space deterrence in the way the shuriken can and require more micro on our already heavy-micro forces. Given the relative superiority of the Shurican compared to the setups of our enemies, it it the efficient choice and required to hold the line in T1.

The problem is that this plays into the hands of our jumptroop/ artillery happy enemies and reduces our opportunity to use our speed. Since we pay a premium in power and req for the speed of our units, camping strategies doom us to attrition conflicts which we are not designed for, and which many of our enemies are...

2. Jump Troops

Our lack of t1 jump troops makes us vulnerable to enemy suppression teams and ranged blobs which will out shoot our own Dire avengers. Holoshees works as a counter, but is micro intensive and leaves us with rangers which are MUCH less effective in the later Tiers than jump troops. While we can counter jump troops reasonably well with banshees held back to counter initiate, and rangers to kinpulse them, but again this forces us into a reactionary, defensive role that does not play to our efficiencies, and plays into those of our enemies. The question here is: how to we reliably take initiative in t1 conflicts once jump troops hit the field? Maybe a second unit of banshees to allow the first to counter jump troops while also being able to flank? Would a second shuriplat to cover the first when jumped be enough?

3. Flamers

While our mobility allows us to bash gens reasonably well sans flamer options on our troops, the deficit is more felt against hoard/ swarm armies. The only flame weapon we have access to in t1 comes as a wargear option on the warlock, but does not do well against gens. Given our power expenses and relatively higher req costs than hoards, playing heavy T1 does not play to our strengths in such cases. This again mandates the use of shurikens, perhaps x2, to try to control the numbers that threaten our infantry. Cheap, melee units like hormogaunts, tics, sluggas etc all threaten our banshees with easily available upgrades, and make supression all the more important. What do you think. x2 shuriplats against hoards? How do we play around the lack of flame weapons?

4. Long range snaring AV

We also lack access to long-ranged snare AV, which makes us very vulnerable to tanky walkers with cc resist, and forces us to get the soon-to-be-nerfed-fire dragons (more short-ranged, low model count low health infantry... never ideal). Without getting into the merits of dragons, the total lack of easily accessible, long-ranged AV snare means we either allow tanky Vehicles to roam free, deter through brightlance upgrades on the shuriplat (or wraithlord), all as part of a broader combination. Tough walker Vehicles always require multiple purchases to kill. Fire dragons, wraith guard, brightlance platforms all get messed up by the walker strolling up and whacking them. The short ranges of the former two exacerbate this further.

The solution to this seems similar to the response to jump troops: counter initiation. Keep fire dragons back to hurt the walker as it stomps into your lines and try to draw it off to isolate it. Since dragons represent the most pressing threat to the walker this should not be hard as it gets into its charge range. If it targets your other troops, pray the dragons do enough damage in time to salvage your squishy lines. Warp spiders deserve note here. The only access to snare we have (through an upgrade), spiders are extremely expensive and uber squishy, and again require infinitely more micro than the buy-and-forget snares of the devastators, havocs, plague marines etc. This is not efficient access to snare at any means, and requires that we focus on hurting AV walkers enough to scare them away while they roam freely, un-snared. How to do that, while not spending a ton of resources, is my question. While our set-up teams can be upgraded w/ the BL, we are forced to buy a new unit to help deal with the walker. The lack of snare means we must kill it or scare it away, because it WILL wreck our squishy faces if we don't. Thoughts?

Conclusion

These are 4 core deficits in our rosters that we must play around effectively to win and seems to mandate a certain styles of play, one being static defense, given the static nature of rangers and shuriplats. But what do you think? How do you play around these relative deficits in our capability?

For the Craftworld

[Tex]

I'm not sure how many team game replays you watch where it is tournament play, but eldar is probably the best faction in serious circumstances.

Gate mobility is amazing, rangers are easily amassed, and brightlances never lose their utility thanks to scorch beam.

You don't need artillery, rangers will do that job easily.
You don't need jump troops, flanks from gates will allow you better position, and, rangers will force your opponent to initiate combat with you.

You have a point on the flamers, except that I can seriously think of about a hundred counter points to justify eldar not having a flamer. To give one example, fleet of foot allows for incredible mobility.
It seems eldar are largely pinned into relying on suppression to deal with swarms and high DPS units to deal damage to gens.

No snare on the brightlance is okay because:
a) warpspiders have haywire grenade, and are by no means a specialty purchase, meaning its almost always a good idea to get one or more squads
b) brightlance carries huge utility with scorch beam (seriously, try it)
c) big DPS
d) Most importantly, rangers force your opponent to fight you, not the other way around. Have your Lance(s) set up, and then start to pick away with the rangers. You have the largest detection range in the game, and you re-cloak so quickly that the enemy artillery won't even be able to target and fire after your shots unless it is a manticore (which by all rights will miss your rangers if you know how to use fleet of foot).

[Laplace's Demon]

I'm not sure how many team game replays you watch where it is tournament play, but eldar is probably the best faction in serious circumstances.

Gate mobility is amazing, rangers are easily amassed, and brightlances never lose their utility thanks to scorch beam.

Unfortunately that has not been what I have seen in replays. Eldar tend to be a liability in late 3v3 end game. Eldritch, avatar and d-cannon excepted. When you have terminators running around, land raiders, nobs etc, the game really becomes about attrition when VP's matter most, reducing the value of eldar mobility.

You don't need artillery, rangers will do that job easily.

Rangers cannot attack ground for one thing, nor do they do serious AOE which further make eldar rely on suppression vs swarms. They are micro heavy unlike real artillery (plasma devs etc), do less damage and cant threaten vehicles. I must disagree on this point.

You don't need jump troops, flanks from gates will allow you better position, and, rangers will force your opponent to initiate combat with you.

Again I must disagree. Gates are stationary, firstly, meaning their utility is restricted to one area. Not much use if fighting in a place far away. The red to get the mandatory x2 is also significant compared to easily accessible jump infantry. This means gates are essentially t2 plays, as they cannot be afforded in time to counter t1 set-ups. If gates were more easy to get on the field and replace I could agree with this, but as they are now, most players don't get more than 3 ever, with 1/3 in base. If they get used, it's usually in pairs for a one-off gen bash (opponents always hunt them down after first use). As for rangers forcing opponents to initiate, any long range sniper unit will do that. They don't get rek faces, nor have any agro initiation like jump infantry do, nor the staying power/ field presence. But then, sniper units aren't supposed to provide that.....

You have a point on the flamers, except that I can seriously think of about a hundred counter points to justify eldar not having a flamer. To give one example, fleet of foot allows for incredible mobility.
It seems eldar are largely pinned into relying on suppression to deal with swarms and high DPS units to deal damage to gens.

We agree about this then! Giving eldar flamers would be hard to justify for gen bash reasons, given their mobility can make up for that, but it does cut eldar out of a reliable source of aoe flame which has other in-field uses than gen bashing- hoard control being the crucial one. Is suppression the only way to go or is there anything more creative eldar can do? Having only one unit option to deal with swarms locks eldar into relying on one unit in every case, which is easily countered due in part to its predictability.

No snare on the brightlance is okay because:
a) warpspiders have haywire grenade, and are by no means a specialty purchase, meaning its almost always a good idea to get one or more squads
b) brightlance carries huge utility with scorch beam (seriously, try it)
c) big DPS
d) Most importantly, rangers force your opponent to fight you, not the other way around. Have your Lance(s) set up, and then start to pick away with the rangers. You have the largest detection range in the game, and you re-cloak so quickly that the enemy artillery won't even be able to target and fire after your shots unless it is a manticore (which by all rights will miss your rangers if you know how to use fleet of foot).

a) Imho, it's not almost always a good idea to get more than 1 squad of spiders mostly because they are inefficient. Buying a t2 AV unit requires other choices as a base (dragons of wraithguard/lord). spiders are only ever secondary to those priorities due to the reality that snarenades and brightlance will not kill any serious AV by themselves. You are buying an entire unit+upgrade+platform upgrade to get the same utility as 1 lascannon for 15 seconds (the duration of the hay-nade effect) and some fragile, mobile anti-infantry troops. They are inefficient for dealing with armor.
b) i have not tried the scortch tbh on the brightlance, mostly because Eldar rely heavily on the aforementioned suppression. Wraithlords are the best source of brightlances due to their survivability and melee ability...both desperately needed for eldar due to the lack of survivability and t2 assault brawlers. I will try scorth though, but i disagree that being worse at AV makes up for being better vs infantry (mostly due to the plethora of anti-infantry options already available to the faction).
c)This is a common misconception. The dps may look high on paper, but without snare, it is all to easy to move targets out of its range of fire, reducing its combat-effective dps to 0 very quickly. Regular snaring AV may have less dps, but their inbuilt snare guarentees several hits which, in aggregate, can sometimes solo vehicles, which the brightlance cannot.
d) Rangers are less efficient as snipers w/ long range than say scouts with snipers. They take up more pop, and force a mobile army to play around static units, and not to its strengths (mobility). Given the premium eldar pay for mobility at the expense of resilience, eldar will lose battle of attrition to factions which are designed for it, making static play inefficient. With the number of jump troops, tanky commanders, t2 melee, beefy vehicle walkers etc around, rangers and brightlance plats are very vulnerable. In the vast majority of games that are casted, one or both of these units dies with intriguing consistently, since getting jumped means death in later tiers unless you're very quick on the retreat (as in, while jumpers are airborne, quick).

I'm not saying the brightlance should have a snare, btw. The question is what to do without it?

Thanks for reading this long if you have! You deserve a cookie

[Cyris]

Unfortunately that has not been what I have seen in replays.

The meat of your argument seems to be coming from this perspective. You are good at making logic chains, but your givens appear to be those of an inexperienced player who is basing your facts on Youtube replays. I strongly urge you to heed the words of Tex; he's relatively patient, one of our best players around and an experienced Eldar player.

Beyond that, bear in mind that diversity is the spice of life. You're basically saying that there is a checklist of capabilities (artillery, flamers, jump troops) that every single faction must have in order to work. Tex is telling you how Eldar's unique bag of tricks more then allows them to compete against other races, but on their own terms. How boring would it be if every race was the same?

[saltychipmunk]

plus eldar has alot of interesting that other races do not have.

a power melee unit that costs only req in t1 of all places

an infantry unit with the starting ranged dps of most heavy infantry for 33% less cost and 33% less pop.

access to cheap grenades on a standard unit , energy shields that act like deploy-able cover that doesnt require you to dick around with building dragon teeth

a set up team who doesn't de setup when its gunner dies because it does not have a gunner.

uncharacteristically pop light units and upgrades (9 pop suppression , low pop exarchs for key units etc)

A ridiculous amount of op as fuck army control abilities.


If it weren't for the fact that i hate every single one of their t3 options i would play them as a race more.

[Laplace's Demon]

Unfortunately that has not been what I have seen in replays.

The meat of your argument seems to be coming from this perspective. You are good at making logic chains, but your givens appear to be those of an inexperienced player who is basing your facts on Youtube replays. I strongly urge you to heed the words of Tex; he's relatively patient, one of our best players around and an experienced Eldar player.

Beyond that, bear in mind that diversity is the spice of life. You're basically saying that there is a checklist of capabilities (artillery, flamers, jump troops) that every single faction must have in order to work. Tex is telling you how Eldar's unique bag of tricks more then allows them to compete against other races, but on their own terms. How boring would it be if every race was the same?

These things you say are true. All of them (including me being relatively inexperienced, especially when compared against the big kids ).

I am saying there is a checklist of capabilities that eldar enemies possess that eldar do not have direct access to. The crucial discussion is what strategies Eldar have to play around those deficits, or in other words, which tricks exactly are best used to achieve similar results? That is really the conversation I'm trying to start with this, and I'm hugely grateful when pro's weigh in.

On that note, I saw a couple games noisy played as the farseer against Dark Riku thanks to

http://www.twitch.tv/redrupee/v/21177160

for linking to that. Seeing noisy's performance was inspirational and made me seriously try to play a hero I'd written off since retail, copying Noisy's Shees (with aspect of fleetness)+ DA +x2 shuriplat build, and FS armor of fortune/ guide ability.

I was amazed at how well it performed. Fortune allows banshees the resiliency they need to make it into melee on foot (no jump troops), and to contend with enemy jumpers, while well timed guide on shuriplats is amazing for scaring off hoards without flamers. These are the kinds of tricks I'm looking to discuss in this thread, and already FS is now my favorite eldar hero!!!

http://www.twitch.tv/redrupee/v/21177160

[Laplace's Demon]

plus eldar has alot of interesting that other races do not have.

a power melee unit that costs only req in t1 of all places

an infantry unit with the starting ranged dps of most heavy infantry for 33% less cost and 33% less pop.

access to cheap grenades on a standard unit , energy shields that act like deploy-able cover that doesnt require you to dick around with building dragon teeth

a set up team who doesn't de setup when its gunner dies because it does not have a gunner.

uncharacteristically pop light units and upgrades (9 pop suppression , low pop exarchs for key units etc)

^^ This is an interesting point. While true, it only really becomes apparent in late game when pop caps start to matter and is balanced by the relatively higher power costs of eldar upgrades that are necessary to function much of the time. It would be interesting to see if there was a way to leverage the low pop in late game to make up for powerful enemy T3 rosters?

A ridiculous amount of op as fuck army control abilities.

All true. Less so with the warlock on the last point though. He has only one, warp throw, iirc, which can be finnicky to hit right.

The key question for me in this strategy discussion is how to leverage those unique advantages eldar have access to, to make up for the lack of other options, and the weaknesses inherent in these advantages. For instance, DA may have good starting damage, but are very flimsy and can't win most 1v1 firefights on their own, much less if they get charged. To offset this flimsyness, the farseer can use armor of fortune + warlock channeling/ shield global. I deliberately omit energy shields because I feel eldar pay in req and power for their mobility. Eldar lose wars of attrition in the end, even when camping behind shields, so staying mobile is critical to success. The abilities above allow the DA to stay mobile and still have better resilience. You'll notice that in the game noisy played vs Riku, noisy never really bought nades or shields for his DA, but leveraged the quicker speed of his set-up teams and armor of fortune to make up the resilience problem.

If it weren't for the fact that i hate every single one of their t3 options i would play them as a race more.

This seems to be a common sentiment, I'm finding. I rarely use fire prisms due to how easy they are to kill and how hard it is to make vehicles cooperate. D-cannons are my go-to as they are Eldar long-range artillery choice, and are very efficient (i.e. allowing damage to be done at distance to offset squishyness, disruption to further offset army squishyness etc). Seer council can't really stand up to terminator variants 1 on 1, but the avatar has very helpful army wide buffs that help mitigate that. To offset the avatar relative squishyness (As far as super units go), I have found warlocks channeling runes to be a huge help. I can't remember the number of times an avatar has been saved by using that ability. pretty clutch. There are tricks that make t3 work, the trick is figuring it out, which is fun as well!

[saltychipmunk]

farseer was always the hero with the most potential , she just has a slow start where as the lock and wse are more straight forward.

1 gets an aoe which can force retreat any light infantry squad if done right and wse can tele melee disrupt.

But in terms of wargear farseer is waaay ahead of either. especially the warlock who has most of his good stuff nerfed.

[Asmon]

If it weren't for the fact that i hate every single one of their t3 options i would play them as a race more.

The wraithbone doesn't sing for you son, just accept it.

I read in the thread that gates are bad in teamgames and I fell off my chair.

[Laplace's Demon]

If it weren't for the fact that i hate every single one of their t3 options i would play them as a race more.

The wraithbone doesn't sing for you son, just accept it.

I read in the thread that gates are bad in teamgames and I fell off my chair.

That was in reference to whether they fulfill the same role as jump troops, I believe. Obviously they're excellent in team games, but the point I was making is that they don't fill the gap left by eldar lack of jump infantry in T1 specifically.

[Wise Windu]

Obviously they're excellent in team games, but the point I was making is that they don't fill the gap left by eldar lack of jump infantry in T1 specifically.

Maybe, but they're stronger than jump troops in my opinion. And much more tactically diverse. Quick flanks on entrenched positions - and under cloak if you're playing FS - and quick flanks in general which can be great for picking off vehicles or anything else. Easy gen bashing potential, picking off retreating units, faster healing in base (Warlock), on-field healing, insane mobility and map control. I'd take gates over jump troops any day.

The jump troop "gap" is there for a reason. If Eldar had jump troops, the amount of engage potential, on top of all of the sneaky ways they have to accomplish what they want, would be massive. And in T1, when it isn't necessary as often to engage head on as Eldar... I dunno, I don't really feel the deficiency. It's simple enough in most cases to set up flanks, or force movement from your opponent. If I were asked to name something Eldar needs in T1, jump troops, or some equivalent, wouldn't be the thing I would ask for.

If gates were more easy to get on the field and replace I could agree with this, but as they are now, most players don't get more than 3 ever, with 1/3 in base. If they get used, it's usually in pairs for a one-off gen bash (opponents always hunt them down after first use).

Then people should use them more often. They're amazing, all the time. Often, people save Red for nukes or something bigger than a gate, but in most cases, gates would accomplish much more than other globals ever could.

[saltychipmunk]

That is debateable, they and jump units have different strengths and weaknesses but to say one is better than the other is somewhat unreasonable.

I believe that web ways have a higher skill ceiling , but also a much higher skill requirement to utilize.

you need to have los to advantageous positions to place the gates
you need to make sure your opponent is not aware of your gates or your intent.
and there there is the fact that once gate is discovered it can easily be destroyed.

those things make it very difficult for most players to effectively utilize gates and which often leads to wasted red pop cap.

where as a jump unit is very straightforward and easy to use, jump on unit x .. profit.

I think this can also be chocked up to one of those mechanics that are way better in 1v1 and huge 2v2/ 3v3 maps where as a jump unit is definitely more consistent in potency.

[Crewfinity]

That is debateable, they and jump units have different strengths and weaknesses but to say one is better than the other is somewhat unreasonable.

I believe that web ways have a higher skill ceiling , but also a much higher skill requirement to utilize.

you need to have los to advantageous positions to place the gates
you need to make sure your opponent is not aware of your gates or your intent.
and there there is the fact that once gate is discovered it can easily be destroyed.

those things make it very difficult for most players to effectively utilize gates and which often leads to wasted red pop cap.

where as a jump unit is very straightforward and easy to use, jump on unit x .. profit.

I think this can also be chocked up to one of those mechanics that are way better in 1v1 and huge 2v2/ 3v3 maps where as a jump unit is definitely more consistent in potency.

no way, gates are so much better than jump troops.

jump troops can jump once (twice with ASM) to disupt a formation, and once they do they're committed. layered setup teams can counter them, as can control abilities or counter initiation units. gates you can pop into and out of and transport your whole army completely across the field instantly.

farseer has farsight global for instant LOS to anywhere on the map.
warp spider can teleport to wherever tf he wants to go for LOS.
warlock is fast as hell. also most of the eldar units have access to FoF so their high mobility makes it easy to find good places for gates.

once the gate is discovered it can be destroyed, sure, but think about this: the opponent needs to detect it first, so he needs a detector (25 power). he then has to destroy it, while operating under the risk that your whole army could pop out of it any second. so really he needs more than just a detector to destroy it. then once he commits a few squads to destroying it you can pop out of another gate across the map and genbash.

along with that you can go full on rat in later game, with gates all over the map and units popping around all over the place decapping your shit. you try to follow, they disappear into the gate, and if you try to destroy it shees pop out and slice you up. shuricans and rangers offer amazing control to go along with the map presence that gates give you.

another thing you can do is instead of retreating a unit in an engagement, you send it back to HQ through a gate, reinforce, and come right back into the same engagement.

along with all of that, each gate offers additional abilities, which are quite significant in the case of farseer or warlock. farseer gates let you ambush anything anwhere at anytime with preparation, and warlock gates give you staying power in engagements or less time healing in base. for only 50 red they give you amazing map control, persistent bonuses, and are much more difficult to counter than 50 red would indicate.

gates used well make me want to facedesk repeatedly. jump units i just laugh and counter initiate.

[saltychipmunk]

no way, gates are so much better than jump troops.

jump troops can jump once (twice with ASM) to disupt a formation, and once they do they're committed. layered setup teams can counter them, as can control abilities or counter initiation units. gates you can pop into and out of and transport your whole army completely across the field instantly.

true, but this requires multiple gates, which can require varying levels of progress in the game.

how often do you have over 150 red before you could purchase and field a jump unit anyway? you must be shredding whatever fool you are fighting already.

farseer has farsight global for instant LOS to anywhere on the map.
warp spider can teleport to wherever tf he wants to go for LOS.
warlock is fast as hell. also most of the eldar units have access to FoF so their high mobility makes it easy to find good places for gates.

farsight costs red, gates cost even more red.
if either the lock or the wse jump/ move near a point i own without capping it, it tends to send several massive red flags off in my head.

once the gate is discovered it can be destroyed, sure, but think about this: the opponent needs to detect it first, so he needs a detector (25 power). he then has to destroy it, while operating under the risk that your whole army could pop out of it any second. so really he needs more than just a detector to destroy it. then once he commits a few squads to destroying it you can pop out of another gate across the map and genbash.

debatable, all he really needs is a general knowledge of where you put the gate after that it is a question of pressuring a critical point on the map with his army to occupy your army (thus drawing them out of a gate) and then have whatever lone unit he wants to find it and kill it at his leisure.

plus one does not need to find it and kill it in the same engagement. once you know exactly where something is , you can always come back too it.

most of the time i don't kill gates with detectors , i just know they are there because it is obvious. And i am not even that good at it, i am sure higher skilled players can easily predict gate locations.

along with that you can go full on rat in later game, with gates all over the map and units popping around all over the place decapping your shit. you try to follow, they disappear into the gate, and if you try to destroy it shees pop out and slice you up. shuricans and rangers offer amazing control to go along with the map presence that gates give you.

very true but this requires an ongoing investment of red and pop space. If your opponent is even remotely on his game he could technically do many things to limit the extent of a gate network.

another thing you can do is instead of retreating a unit in an engagement, you send it back to HQ through a gate, reinforce, and come right back into the same engagement.

also true. but that is way more challenging to pull off in practice especially if the fight itself is on the gate. moving even one unit off of a fight might free an opponent's unit to plink away at the gate.

along with all of that, each gate offers additional abilities, which are quite significant in the case of farseer or warlock. farseer gates let you ambush anything anwhere at anytime with preparation, and warlock gates give you staying power in engagements or less time healing in base. for only 50 red they give you amazing map control, persistent bonuses, and are much more difficult to counter than 50 red would indicate.


gates used well make me want to facedesk repeatedly. jump units i just laugh and counter initiate.

And that is exactly what i mean by high skill ceiling. still, all of these points you bring up ( while valid) require varying levels of hidden investment that i am positive is completely alien to most eldar players .
being easy to use is a strength that should never be underestimated.

[Dark Riku]

Grey knights: grenade launchers/ teleporting assault troops, blue flame weapons etc (i don't know their names off hand).

Interceptors are T3, the jump troops.

What's the point of this thread Laplace? For example, Tex shared his opinion and all you did was disagree and state very questionable things, just one example below.
You already seem to have your own skewed opinion on things set in stone. So what's the point?

to make up for powerful enemy T3 rosters?

Implying Eldar T3 is anything but powerful...

where as a jump unit is very straightforward and easy to use, jump on unit x .. profit.

Have it covered by a supression team, dedicated melee, ... net loss.

[Laplace's Demon]

Grey knights: grenade launchers/ teleporting assault troops, blue flame weapons etc (i don't know their names off hand).

Interceptors are T3, the jump troops.

Ha, ya my grey knights knowledge is not stellar.

What's the point of this thread Laplace? For example, Tex shared his opinion and all you did was disagree and state very questionable things, just one example below.
You already seem to have your own skewed opinion on things set in stone. So what's the point?

to make up for powerful enemy T3 rosters?

Implying Eldar T3 is anything but powerful...

That was in response to an observation made by someone else that they don't play eldar much because the felt their T3 was weaker than other races. I was saying in response that there are valid reasons t feel that way, but that I disagreed, citing the d-cannon and avatar combos as evidence. Its it true that the seer council doesnt stand up to terminator variants, and that the fire prism is uber-squishy and tends to be harder to manage (as vehicles can be). My question before that part you quoted was actually whether Eldar low pop units could be leveraged somehow in T3 when pop count matters, as lower pop costs are an Eldar strength.

where as a jump unit is very straightforward and easy to use, jump on unit x .. profit.

Have it covered by a supression team, dedicated melee, ... net loss.

Yes, that is a way to try to counter jump troops. But having counter initiation or 1st shuriplat+2nd shuriplat requires that a big part of an eldar army be fighting one unit, while also trying to deal with everything else coming their way. Or, often you'll have suppression immune commanders, or FC smacking up the first shuriplat that got jumped while the Jump units goes after the second set up team, (but that takes timing and skill to do, so no complaints there). If the BO is DA+Shees+DA+x2 Shuriplat means x2 DA must fight of the rest of the enemy army, while shees+x2 shuriplats try to force off 1 jump unit. But this is neither-here-nor-there, tbo, I'm not saying Eldar can't counter jump units. That was never the purpose of this article imo.

More to the point, as I said above, the BO where Eldar gets x2 shuriplats, it tends to make eldar into a very reactive/ defensive/ static army composition. My point was that, since eldar pay in req and power for their superior mobility, Eldar struggle with wars of attrition (which other factions are designed for, thus fighting at full efficiency), and so are not fighting at their own full efficiency. The question on jump troops is two-fold: 1. What advice do people have for fighting off enemy jumpers while maintaining army mobility and 2. How can eldar achieve the same initiation effectiveness as jump infantry, without having access to jump units, and with a comparable degree of micro? I had pitched the idea of x2 shees, one for counter initiation, and the other for flanks. Thoughts on that idea?

It's a long-ish thread, but I think it's a strategy discussion that is useful for framing the challenges and identifying solutions.

[Laplace's Demon]

Moving right along,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxN4J_l ... Zo&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9Rs-uZ ... Zo&index=4

A huge thank you to Crewfinity for posting these games in another thread!

These games answer the question about how use eldar mobility to good effect to offset their lack of attrition potential.

DoW2 is a game won by controlling static points. Req/vic points can change hands fairly fluidly over the course of the game, but power points are critical to control and protect long-term. From an eldar perspective, this does ot bode well as, as previously mentioned, eldar are built for mobility (i.e. capping many points) rather than defending individual ones.

As we can see from these games,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Gv2ez ... Zo&index=6

The eldar player must essentially concede his power points/ gens when pushed with lots of enemy troops. Intuitively, this would force a war of attrition with Eldar, which they tend to lose (even when played by pros). It seems like a mistake as eldar to try to defend gen pushes beyond some harassment squads that can retreat close to base to go harass again. To try to defend leads to bleed from attrition, and often fails due to enemy damage/ resilience in attrition.

Instead, capitalize on the enemy position. When enemy units are bashing, they're not defending. Eldar trade attrition ability for mobility, so it makes more sense to go for a gen farm trade to even the score, while back capping as well. The key is that eldar MUST be successful in this first attempt, as they will not get a second and will suffer in tech very quickly afterwards, due to high power dependency.

[Lichtbringer]

I always find it funny when the Brightlance gets credited for its high dps (45)^^
The IG Lascannon has 41, AND delivers it in bursts of 165 instead of 90. (and slows).
The Orks beamy deff gun has 43 dps and delivers it in bursts of 240! (but doesn't slow).
Yeah, I am not really feeling it.

This is not to say that it is imbalanced! I just don't think the sole argument that the Brightlance has high DPS is a good standalone point.
I would rather say, it has the best dps by a small margin, offset by the fact that it doesn't burst its damage which makes its effective DPS in almost all cases lower than the other teams, BUT there are a lot of other army compositinal facts that help Eldar out and make it balanced.


And, I have something really cool for you Laplace^^: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aJVwPNFsZc

[Laplace's Demon]

I always find it funny when the Brightlance gets credited for its high dps (45)^^
The IG Lascannon has 41, AND delivers it in bursts of 165 instead of 90. (and slows).
The Orks beamy deff gun has 43 dps and delivers it in bursts of 240! (but doesn't slow).
Yeah, I am not really feeling it.

This is not to say that it is imbalanced! I just don't think the sole argument that the Brightlance has high DPS is a good standalone point.
I would rather say, it has the best dps by a small margin, offset by the fact that it doesn't burst its damage which makes its effective DPS in almost all cases lower than the other teams, BUT there are a lot of other army compositinal facts that help Eldar out and make it balanced.


And, I have something really cool for you Laplace^^: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aJVwPNFsZc

Ha! That's amazing!!!

What army composition elements do you mean? For the sake of the discussion it would be valuable to be specific.

[Laplace's Demon]

Observation:

Eldar seem to struggle with mass-assault enemies. multiple sluggas in t1 from orks, multiple hormogaunts from nids etc all hard counter, especially with cloaking commanders to tie up set up teams. Once enemy jump troops hit the field, it becomes very difficult to stand up against it, as Holy Hammer will surely attest. This seems primarily due to eldar over-reliance of setup teams in t1 and later, and ties into previous observations about eldar lack of flame weapons or aoe in t1. Shees are not enough to stem the tide, due to the fact they lose 1v1 against upgraded tics, upgraded hormos etc. add in focused fire from enemy backliners and you are in trouble. your shuriken gets tied by cloaked or supression immune commanders/ jump troops, and melee spam overwhelms your fire base.

Solution:

More shees? Buildorder as follows

x1 DA x2 shees x1 shuri
plus any control wargear we can get on the heros, or melee weapons to engage the tide.

Plan is: keep 1 shee back with setup to counter cloaked heros/ supression immune tanks as possible, 1 forward to intercept melee hoards, and DA to help front shees force off at least 1 melee squad before they have to fall back themselves (from also taking ranged fire).

priority: protect the shuriken. eldar will not win against melee hoards without it. grenades dont have enough impact, shees are too fragile and rangers lack the field prescence.

against melee hoards, shuriplats are the only option.

agree? disagree?

[Crewfinity]

just get DA exarchs. double DA's with exarchs will wreck melee blobs, especially with shurican support.

[Nurland]

2 Shees could be viable with the cost reduction they have gotten but I would still just do 2 shuri cannons myself unless I would need long range detection.

[PhatE]

DA Banshee Shuriken Ranger Ranger all day, bro.

I don't even need aspects anymore. I can leave DA and banshee's vanilla and it's of no consequence.

[Aetherion]

DA Banshee Shuriken Ranger Ranger all day, bro.

I don't even need aspects anymore. I can leave DA and banshee's vanilla and it's of no consequence.

I get that u can leave DA's plain, but the 10% health for shees is surely valuable?

[PhatE]

DA Banshee Shuriken Ranger Ranger all day, bro.

I don't even need aspects anymore. I can leave DA and banshee's vanilla and it's of no consequence.

I get that u can leave DA's plain, but the 10% health for shees is surely valuable?

The suppression from rangers makes all aggressive actions force something from your opponent with large chunks of HP removed from HI. As well as slowing pushes down one squad at a time. Jump troops are hit really hard by this and if they jump offensively they run into either a banshee or shuriken. Most times both.

This is a recent example of the build;

http://www.gamereplays.org/dawnofwar2/r ... &id=307476

I've tested this against both Tex (Apo) and Gom (FC) and a few others and this has given me a near 100% win rate so far out of about 12-15 games or so and it doesn't only apply to SM. Orks and Chaos also have a tough time against it. Admittedly, I didn't keep DA vanilla the entire time but banshee's never got an aspect.

[Cyris]

If you have some time PhatE, could you chat a bit more about this build order and some tips on using it? possible topics: Commander, node/gen timings, positioning tips, upgrade orders, T2 timings and T2 additions.

Eldar is the final race on my list of mains, so I'm thinking about them more lately. Double ranger plus all the fixins sounds like a really interesting T1 heavy build (which I tend to favor).

[Laplace's Demon]

DA Banshee Shuriken Ranger Ranger all day, bro.

I don't even need aspects anymore. I can leave DA and banshee's vanilla and it's of no consequence.

I get that u can leave DA's plain, but the 10% health for shees is surely valuable?

The suppression from rangers makes all aggressive actions force something from your opponent with large chunks of HP removed from HI. As well as slowing pushes down one squad at a time. Jump troops are hit really hard by this and if they jump offensively they run into either a banshee or shuriken. Most times both.

This is a recent example of the build;

http://www.gamereplays.org/dawnofwar2/r ... &id=307476

I've tested this against both Tex (Apo) and Gom (FC) and a few others and this has given me a near 100% win rate so far out of about 12-15 games or so and it doesn't only apply to SM. Orks and Chaos also have a tough time against it. Admittedly, I didn't keep DA vanilla the entire time but banshee's never got an aspect.

Interesting game. Not sure why Tex got the plasma devs when he knew x2 rangers were on the field. A dread or even ASM to disrupt the rangers would have done much better I think. Scouts, setup teams... all are targets rangers do well against.

[Lichtbringer]

DA Banshee Shuriken Ranger Ranger all day, bro.

I don't even need aspects anymore. I can leave DA and banshee's vanilla and it's of no consequence.

I wonder about this, because I tried to leave Banshees without an Aspect too. But to me it seemed that that left them absolutly helpless against any kind of kiting. They have neither the Warshout nore the FoF nore a meleecharge to stop any squad from just running away, even after being engaged in melee.
Do you use them striclty for counterinitiation against jumptroops and such?
How do you manage to keep DAs costeffective? I guess you use them in a way where they never get shot at? Using them only to shoot down enemy melee?

edit: (will watch the replay later, sorry if its obvious there^^)

[Cyris]

I wonder about this, because I tried to leave Banshees without an Aspect too. But to me it seemed that that left them absolutly helpless against any kind of kiting.

Theorycrafting: the Shuri and double Rangers are there to provide all the CC. The shee and DA are there for raw dps only (and capping), and aspect isn't gonna help there. If an enemy ranged squad has been hit by double rangers and is suppresed (maybe shuri is protecting against melee) the shees closing to melee will force an auto-retreat, with or without aspect. Save the req/power for getting pathfinder on the Rangers. Just theory though. This build excites me, and I wanna try it! T2 transitions might be tricky with only 1x repair and 1 shuri, but curious to see how it works out! Plz post more PhatE

[PhatE]

If you have some time PhatE, could you chat a bit more about this build order and some tips on using it? possible topics: Commander, node/gen timings, positioning tips, upgrade orders, T2 timings and T2 additions.

Eldar is the final race on my list of mains, so I'm thinking about them more lately. Double ranger plus all the fixins sounds like a really interesting T1 heavy build (which I tend to favor).

So this one works on really well on open maps like Siwal, GTG/PTG, Calderis, etc and not so great on enclosed ones like Leviathan Hive and maybe Jarilo's. IMO it's because Jarilo's is a low resource map with 5 jillion LoS blockers but haven't tested it very much on Jarilo's so the verdict isn't out yet on that one.

As a personal preference I only do this as the WSE because he's my favourite of the 3 but Hans, to my understanding, also has done this numerous times as the Warlock so I think it can apply to all the commanders. I'd say it probably works even better as the farseer given that guide is so useful. But then again so is teleporting. If I were to do this as the Farseer it would feel unnatural to me as I prefer other things with the farseer. The same as when I play the warlock. I like certain things and don't like to follow a trend or the current meta game too closely. Each time I get casted I usually hear why did he get this? It's more that I just want the thing that I want at the current time.

I'll blend the first two questions together from a WSE perspective. The build order goes like this;

WSE to nat power, DA to nat req, banshee purchase, node, cap whatever's closest next, 2 gens as the node finishes, shuriken (this is nearly a perfect timing given that resources are almost 0 0 at the purchase point) with banshees at 350 then you have ~63-66 req left to spare but 0 power, ranger, ranger, pathfinder, pathfinder. This is all for the resource side of things as at this stage you can really apply all the pressure you want from a distance. As mentioned it's not just SM that it works really well against it's also Chaos and Orks. I already got quoted so add in GK to this as well as nids to an extent. You were there for the time I fought double ops against Tex btw a long while ago where I did the exact same build.

Heading into T2 you follow up with a Falcon. If you've got 3 gens and another power point then you should get this roughly 10-15 seconds after you finish t2 but sometimes you get it as soon as you hit T2. The Falcon is a great purchase here because even if there are jump troops the shuriken can take care of things and you can hop inside the falcon and unload later a few seconds later and the rangers are untouched. You get really decent sight range from here as well so you can spot AV from a mile away.

Depending what you see next you can get DR or WS's or just head into T3. If you see a transport feel free to get WS's and don't bother upgrading the shuriken as the Falcon can do enough AV where it's not an issue or an oh damn I need AV! Haywire and a falcon will do. Global call ins are preferred here. In T3 first purchase is the shield given that you've been careful enough

The WSE is so great here because he can destabilise your economy whilst the rangers take shots at anything invisibly and force you to be other places where the WSE isn't. If I were to go for just DA shuriken banshee ranger then I'd probably need him for a bit more fighting but with the addition of the second it becomes a breeze.

Mind you though that if I were fighting a teleporting FC instead then that would be a different story or if there were two ASM. But in this game in particular the lack of ASM and getting snipers offered Tex very little in terms of countering the build. I don't think he expected that I get two rangers but that's just my suspicion

...

I wonder about this, because I tried to leave Banshees without an Aspect too. But to me it seemed that that left them absolutly helpless against any kind of kiting. They have neither the Warshout nore the FoF nore a meleecharge to stop any squad from just running away, even after being engaged in melee.
Do you use them striclty for counterinitiation against jumptroops and such?
How do you manage to keep DAs costeffective? I guess you use them in a way where they never get shot at? Using them only to shoot down enemy melee?

edit: (will watch the replay later, sorry if its obvious there^^)

You're being actively aggressive with rangers so pick off as much hp as you can. If they jump the rangers then shurikens are close by to let you get away with hopefully only one model lost at most.

DA and banshee's are usually together at this point so they're a pretty strong fighting force for patrolling the map and getting capping squads although to be more effective you can upgrade DA all the way but it depends on how the game is going. tl;dr aggression through rangers, patrol through DA and banshee's