Michael the Liu (and Mark A Shieh) wrote:
>> never lost... Before I start, do your opponents field
>>crippled armies, or do you have house rules I don't know about? If
>>not, I'd like to get some advice from you, as these are some of the
>>armies I have problems facing.
No crippled armies nor house rules. Just EPIC as it is. I don't know if I'm
able to give advices to others, but, well, these are my (first) thoughts
about your questions (and I apologise for the poor quality of my English:
I'm a french-speaking player).
First of all, some generic remarks:
1- As you break quickly, hide your units. For an Eldar, deploying the army
in sight of the enemy on the first turn means quick defeat. Stay behind as
long as you can and never commit any stand without a very good reason
(taking an objective for the rest of the game, protecting your heavy
artillery).
2- Use your advantages: long range and pop-up capability. Field many
Tempests, Doomweavers, Falcons and Firestorms. The rest of your army should
be chosen in order to accomplish specific tasks: even Guardians are useful
for protecting your rear units from Thawks, biospores and the like.
3- The Eldars have very specialised troops for very specialized tasks:
Firestorms (Snap Fire), Scorpions (Taking/defending objectives) or
Jet-Bikes (protecting artillery/attracting enemy fire) are only examples of
this specialization. Just take full advantage of this by desinging
complementary "battle groups" for taking objectives, defending crucial
terrain or shooting enemy at long range.
4- Eldar Titans are useless. Don't bother taking any in your army. Even
with two Pulsar Cannons, the only hope you could have is gaining initiative
and fire it once. 10 secons later, it will be reduced to ashes by barrage
templates. Exception: Revenants are just fantastic units! They can hide
behind buildings and their Pulsars are very powerful. I've always 2 or 4 of
them (depending on the points of the game) in my army.
5- Carefully plan your shooting phase: unless very special circumstances,
always fire your Doomweavers first (no LOS required if you've flyers), then
your "direct fire" troops and shoot your pop-up units last... Your opponent
will then have few units to fire back at your popping-up vehicles.
And now for the specific opponents:
>A quick run down on strategies:
>
>> Squats: I break about twice as fast as they do, and I'm
>>afraid to field large targets like the Tempest or Battle Titans. They
>>also tend to get more firepower per point than I do, and enough of
>>their stuff is on FF that popups don't help much. And void shields
>>are far better than holo fields, so I have trouble punching through
>>each turn, and they regenerate between turns if I don't finish them
>>off in one turn.
>
>Take jet bikes to hit the artillery fast and hard. Don't take juicy
>targets like tempests or battle titans unless you're supremely confident
>you can get the artillery down in time. While vibro-cannons will be the
>first to be shot down, the fact that they're targeted first means you're
>opponent is afraid of them enough to want them dead more than anything
>else. Use Warlocks to screen units with Eldritch storms. A single
>eldritch storm right in front of a colossus or a cyclops means you just
>removed 500 points worth of firepower from the enemy for an entire turn,
>though your opponent may consider this cheesy.
Hmmm... Of course, NEVER take Titans but Revenants in your army (see
above), but definitely take Tempests! Really, what do you think about 12
long-range pop-up attacks with a -3 Save Mod and 1+ Saves for 900 pts? My
regular opponents would like to have some Tempests in their army! We could
argue further over the Tempests pro and cons, but well... maybe in another
thread. Let's go back to the Squats: I agree with the Eldritch Storm
tactics, even if it means very often that you would dangerously expose your
Warlocks, something I hate to do: better keep them for the end of the game.
And this is not cheesy: someone should never tell you you're cheesing the
game while using Mega-Cannons, Land Trains, Overlords, Cyclops and
Colossus. If he does, just laugh. Concerning the Jet-Bikes, you should be
very lucky to find an opponent deploying his artillery within 70 cm of
them, unless:
1- You're playing over a very small area,
2- he's a fool.
And of course, your Jet-Bikes are dead if they don't hit something
immediately. So, I prefer to destroy the Squat artillery and/or reduce its
effectiveness by a combination of the following tactics:
1- Heavy Doomweavers "bombing" ("Webbing"?). Remember that many Squat
weapons can't fire if they move: even if they escape the Webs, they will do
nothing for the turn.
2- Nightwings deep infiltration (very risky, but juicy if it works).
3- Sacrifice of cheap troops (like Spirit host, once again) in order to
attract enemy fire while you're concentrating on useful stuff (killing
Overlords, advancing within range with 75 cm weapons, taking some
objectives).
Concerning the shields, don't bother firing at the SHV having them: destroy
the rest and don't stay in their LOS.
Just as an example, the last time I played (10 days ago), it was a 10.000
pts game against a Squat army. I won 76/43 in two turns. The Squats fielded
2 Colossus, 1 Cyclop, 4 Overlords, 4 Goliaths, 2 complete Land Trains, 2
Artillery companies, 2 Bikers Guilds, 12 Gyrocopters, and so on. I had 9
Tempests, 10 Doomweavers, 4 Firestorms, 6 Nightwings, 4 Revenants + a
balanced mix of the other Eldar units. At the end of the game, my opponents
still had his 2 Colossus and his Cyclop (I didn't even tried to fire at
them), but nothing else among his "heavies". Great job by the Doomweavers,
I confess...
Really, I know the Squats are very strong: they are the only army able to
outgun the Eldars. However, they have some serious shortcomings: many
one-shot weapons (remember, hide your best units on the first turn and let
the templates crush useless units), few transport vehicles (so, very slow
infantry, easy to kill before they become dangerous) and, most importantly,
a fatal discrepancy between very fast/flying units (Bikers, Overlords,
Gyrocopters) and the bulk of the army (static artillery). For an Eldar,
it's rather easy, using superior movement capabilities and troops
specialization, to isolate and destroy the advanced units.
>> IG: I don't have large numbers of shots, and I am in danger
>>of being overwhelmed by companies of infantry. Barring a row of Wave
>>Serpents, I don't know what to do about this. I suppose I could just
>>keep hoping he fields his tanks, but that doesn't seem like an ideal
>>strategy to me.
>
>Take the jet bikes again to take out the artillery with. Try and stay
>mobile and keep away from the largest concentrations of infantry (since
>you're being overwhelmed you say, I'll assume they're charging you and thus
>can't shoot you while you're moving around). Take night wings to try and
>do as much damage as possible to his firepower base and command structure.
>A few CC aspect warriors in the midst of his infantry can butcher them
>pretty quick, while dire avengers can be just plain sweet if you're lucky.
Once again, I don't understand why you don't have large numbers of shots.
Once again, Tempests, Doomweavers and Firestorms are the key. Once again,
masses of slowly advancing infantry are just likely to be shot before
becoming dangerous. Did you try "webbing" infantry companies? Don't forget
that even if you miss, he can't pass through the Webs during the two
following turns: the battle will be over before he hurts anything. I still
don't agree with the Jet-Bikes tactics (see above, my remarks about the
Squats). In fact, IG alone seems to me like Squats with lesser firepower
and one of the easiest army to play against. And if they are using Titan
Legions, well, just take the Titans down with Tempests and Firestorms: the
easiest job I know in EPIC...
>> Chaos: Well, I haven't played against Chaos for a while, and
>>he insisted on using several house rules. I've also picked up advice
>>over the past couple years on the ML that I haven't had a chance to
>>try. I can probably try to do this myself and get some more
>>experience first.
>
>If you play with that ridiculous ruling that allows prism cannons to ice
>GDs, take plenty of those to keep those nasties in hiding. A warlock titan
>with two psylances can be pretty mean for suppressing enemy GDs as well.
>If one of his Gds ever shows his face immediately pound it with either your
>psychic weapons or so many conventional weapons that it'll either burn
>through his Chaos cards or force him to sacrifice the daemon. Try and keep
>your army mostly skimmers and mobile to keep away from the many Chaos
>troops that don't shoot, while using your nightwings to hit his firepower
>base. Once he only has CC troops left it's a done deal.
I agree, but here, I would say: sit back and destroy them. They are so slow
and so short-ranged... This is not playing, this is just throwing dice.
Should be more interesting if they have SM/IG with them (remember they
can't have more than 50% of IG with them). Then, really, a cautious
combination of firepower and mobility is the key, as you can't be sure to
take objectives in CC against most of the chaos troops and the IG artillery
can damage your own artillery. The best Chaos units are: Khorne Cannons
(don't take titans even against chaos because of them), Silver Towers, Lord
of Battles and Magnus. Shoot them first. The most despicable Chaos units
are: Banelord, Doom Wings, most "CC-only" units. Don't forget to shoot at
them, but it can wait a couple of turns (but, once again, it depends on the
width of the table). One last thing: don't allow house rules to denaturate
the game. I really like designing and using house rules and the like, but
you should be careful to respect the specificities of the armies. For
example, IMHO, designing Chaos units moving 35 cm per turn and firing at
250 cm is not just "cheesing", this is cheating, whatever the points
values...
>In all of these cases, also make a point of using your superior mobility to
>take objectives that your opponent would have trouble taking.
Right. But don't forget your other advantages: deploy your artillery far
away from the enemy and NEVER EXPOSE A MODEL WITH POP-UP CAPABILITY. This
is just offering free shots to your opponent. BTW, I don't understand why
so few players like the Doomweavers: with the Tempests, they are the
backbone of all my Eldar armies.
>
>Oh, and sorry for the terse replies, but I didn't feel like creating a
>super-long post the way that happened last time there was an Eldar tactics
>discussion.
>
>>Mark
>
>Michael the Liu
Well... it seems I created a super-long post, now... Sorry! ;-)
Renaud
Received on Tue Apr 01 1997 - 15:24:07 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Oct 22 2019 - 13:09:16 UTC