Wednesday 2 February 2011

Learnings of the Shas

Saim Hann Eldar 1: Killing the Space Elves
I don't have much experience playing against Eldar, possibly my least played against army apart from Imperial Guard. And further narrowing that down is the fact that I only play against Saim Hann Eldar so I'm afraid the next two tactics posts are going to be fairly focused on one type of Eldar.

Things you shouldn't do
A typical Saim Hann Eldar army has tons of Jetbikes and most often a fair few tanks and Vyper Jetbikes as well. This makes it very, very fast. The entire army can and sometimes will relocate completely in a single turn, using their 24" boost move. Consequently under no circumstances should you chase the Eldar back and forth across the table randomly. They'll just outmanoeuvre you, isolate your units and systematically take your army apart. It really is painful to see.  Always be aware of where the Eldar can be next turn, not what they can kill. It's all very well bringing up support units to rescue afar flung out squad, but does this mean those same scary jetbikes are now on your unprotected objective and stealing the game from you on turn 5. I'm going to talk about objectives in part 2.

Things you should do
Take away their mobility. Force them out of position and pounce on them with a combat unit if you can. Saim Hann Eldar are terrible in combat. Ws 3, strength 3, 1 attack. Okay, they have a 3+ save and toughness 4 but they struggle to hurt you back. Even battlesuits will hold them up but this should only be used as a last resort.
Aside from combat their main weakness is morale. Most armies will not have very big squads to increase versatility, especially in armies of less than 2000 points. Units are most often four strong. Kill one and you cause a morale test on leadership eight. Kill three and they're not rallying. I've seen enough Eldar losses to know morale is a big problem for jetbikes.

I just want to mention tanks briefly. You van go for the tank kills and take them out early on but remember it's the troops choices that matter (In kill points always go for Vyper Jetbikes. Even pulse rifles will make holes in them, most things killing on a 3+ with a penetrating hit). If you take care to place squishy troops in cover, most often you can ignore tanks and concentrate on more important targets.

To conclude: Don't chase the Eldar they'll run away and laugh at you. Do, force them to take morale tests and lots of them. Do get your kroot stuck into combat where they can mince the jetbike riders.
I hope this has been an interesting look at killing Saim Hann Eldar. In part 2, I'm  going to take a look at objectives and positioning.
Ko'vash

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