ISO Suggestions how not to suck with Eldar

[Darkgecko]

So as part of my comprehensive experience with this game I've gone ahead and finished the story of all the factions. I screwed up with Imperium and triggered the last stage of death robots when the most advanced tech I had were the 3 basilisks I was supporting so I've got to do that again but in every other case I played through the 'campaigns' without significant difficulty. The Eldar however are a freaking nightmare to play. I mean, I get the idea of emphasis on advanced tactics and managing glass cannons and all that but seriously this design feels the Eldar are the race the devs hate the most in the tabletop game and want to just pass that pain off to the player. Kind of get's old fast when guardians get absolutely decimated from overwatch and every webway on the map comes under attack one way or the other. Just finding the whole experience a real grind and would appreciate some practical tips on surviving with them.

[Giraffeguin]

I've only played the Eldar once so far (was doing the same as you and doing all stories - fell for the same trap with Imperium :) ) but I did manage to win.

So yes, the beginning is rough due to the glass cannon bit. The trick is to abuse the fire and move and fight a retreating battle. Lure enemies into your overwatch instead. I ditched guardians ASAP and just eventually let them die to use Fire Dragons instead.

Rangers are great against neutral mobs and enemy infantry (I was lucky to find Tau as my first and closest enemy - absolutely destroyed all their infantry and drones at range). However I found I struggled to take down their fortifications and vehicles and ended up retreating until I had something to deal with them. Fire dragons and Shining Spears are good anti vehicle/fortifcations damage. But they will also get hurt a lot by overwatch.

So what I ended up doing to deal with overwatch is using the hero to tank damage.
I rushed for the healer first so that I could at least take care of the neutrals and containing the enemy with overwatch until I got my other heroes out. I also got a second healer so that I could heal every turn (it's a cooldown of 2 turns). Then I got the first hero finally. I believe it was also part of a quest so I ended up having to retreat again to deal with quest spawns.

The hero doesn't seem to be as good of a tank as others (say Warboss of the Orks) but he definitely survived way better than any other Eldar. So I would buff him with armor from the healing hero and send him in to take overwatch fire. If he got too damaged I healed him with the second healer. Otherwise, I saved it so could use the heal in emergency next turn. Then I sent the Fire Dragons in after to support damage.

I also saved influence up to buy armor and duskblade at the shops. Lifesteal + armor does great at allowing most melee heroes to tank.

So yeah I think my progression went something like:

Guardians (maybe got like 1 new one)
Rangers (got like +5 more)
Howling Banshees
Healing Hero

At that point I ran into the enemy on accident. Found out I have too many rangers and not enough armor penetration so left
Got second healer, fire dragons, the first hero (Autarch)

Then went back to fight the base while researching vehicles.
Oh yeah I got a second base around that time I think. I never went beyond 2 cities because of the Eldar's atrocious growth and I didn't want to take loyalty hits.

If I played again, I would go less rangers; most of them ended up dying while barely doing any damage. They came in handy again for the story missions (infantry spawned) but otherwise the AI didnt use enough infantry to really justify them. I'd probably rush Fire Dragons faster - they performed well for me (I did get some upgrades that affect them). Shining Spears did good damage but died really often. Howling banshees too. I think just have to be prepared to lose them and replace them so you will want to get production lines up that that allow you to produce them faster and often. If you can, grab webways near your advancement so can send them back to battle faster.

Oh yeah - neutrals will attack your webways. It's super annoying. So I'll probably grab them less in the future and secure the area first (or go through the portal to defend it). Was really fun when a Kastellan Robots kept attacking them....

Near the end game - I found the warlocks really cool. Can join your army easy with teleport. Their witchfire destroyed most things. They can't take hits well though so they ended up dying in the later story missions. I ended up completing a normal victory first (Around tier 6 or 7) and then continued to climb the tech tree while doing the story missions. I think to avoid progressing the story I just never bothered to research Avatar of Khaine until much later. Scorpions and Wraithknights (the giant ones) are great and you will definitely win if you even just have a couple.

Wraithblades are decent... but I found they rarely entered the battle. Definitely go for air when you can; I find air support is handy on all races just for the high mobility if nothing else. I think Fire Dragons and Warlocks were the key that helped me unit wise. Otherwise the heroes were key to staying alive. Howling Banshees morale debuff is really good and helpful - plus they can't get overwatched. But they are fragile like all other Eldar. So don't be surprised when they end up dying. They are definitely helpful in the early game even if you end up losing them.

Edit:
Oh yeah - I also delayed the story for a long time at the part where you retrieve 3 Vauls Sentries. I don't remember when I finally picked up all 3. I think I wiped out 1 AI base first then went back to do the quest. Then delayed the story again until the rest of the AI were wiped out because I ran into both of the other 2 AI at the same time.

[Stardustfire]

the unit with the most combat efficency for eldar is as laughable fact the scout walker unit, this unit that equials in TT the AM scoutwalkers (with a little more arnament and a shield for the eldar unit) is made a T7 mass devastation weapon in gladius, performing tons better than the eldars TITAN UNIT and the SUPERHEAVY TANK.
as long they dont get it together and give us khaindar and/or warp spiders with stats that equial what they can do at TT Gladius Eldar are a total mess with total unbalance in the rooster (but even when we get this units i dont have much hope the can fill the gaps, looking at the underwordly state and useability transition the eldars gone from TT to gladius)

[Jey]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Eldar are a total mess with total unbalance in the rooster

You just suck at Gladius.

[Stardustfire]

ok than tell me
where are the long range heavy hitting, heavy unit killing, infantry units?
where is the mass in the guard units that shoud have been there, to compensate for there artifical gladius only created fragility?
why is there titan unit a joke in weapons and hp compared to other races normal tanks, not to even mentation other races heavy tanks and titans?
why is there best none superheavy tank that rules TT a joke compared to other races light tanks or even lower than that units?
why are the infantry units that are compareable to SM or Necron Infantry in standing power more fragile than AM soldiers?

if you have no knowledge of basics, just shut up iffu.

[Ronald Jesch]

The second comment was very helpful. I was thinking it felt like bashing my head into a wall using guardians. Their low range and fragility means they just die like rabbits. I'm still confused at how the fire and move mechanic works because some times I pick a direct path to attack and can't retreat. The heroes for the eldar are a big let down after the heroes from the other factions, they just seem very squishy for the damage and abilities they have. The wayshrine attacks are very frustrating because early game there's pretty much nothing you can do but watch your prospects of new cities die but if you're going low city count I guess it's not that big of a deal. It's a big adjustment from my more favored factions (Tau, IG, and Necrons). The neutrals seem like they're trolling me when I play as the eldar because I'll attack a unit with both of my starter guardians and a random unit out of the fog of war will pick off one of my guardians so I'm using 1 unit until my barracks finishes. Ugh.

[Giraffeguin]

So the fire and move basically works as if you haven't moved already, then you can do your action first then move. You can't do move, action, move.

So the best way to use it is wait for an enemy to come to you, overwatch them. They return fire but due to the overwatch damage they sustained, they won't hurt you as bad as usual. Next turn you attack them immediately, then move away towards your reinforcements who can then overwatch them next turn, etc. If you mean your movement doesn't seem to allow them to retreat it could be that the enemy blocked them in or you're stuck by bad terrain (like the weeds).

On neutrals - it really helps to have a ranger help out due to their range and inability to get overwatched. I think I mostly just used the starting guardians to get the nearest outposts and then used the forest to try and ambush some neutrals. They eventually get wounded and I sent them into the HQ to heal up safely while waiting to pump out rangers.

Also avoid kroot hounds if they have friends. They will get angry and gang up on you. If there is just one - you can focus fire and kill them off before they ever get a chance to attack you.

I agree their heroes aren;t as great as others. The healing support unit isn't too bad since you can alternate between armor buff + heals so it's always doing some kind of support. The Autarch at least survives better than the infantry. I mostly relied on him and Fire dragons for fortification and vehicle damage early on. I believe he has a special grenade he can use to damage them as well.

I didn't really like the hero that rides a vehicle. Seemed too fragile.

[Jey]

Originally posted by Ronald Jesch:

I'm still confused at how the fire and move mechanic works

There's no "fire and move" mechanic.
There's a "Shooting doesn't consume movement" mechanic.

if you already moved in your turn to be able to shoot, you can't move again after shooting.
Additionnally, vehicles don't have this ability (Shining Spears and Vaul's Wrath are not vehicles, though built in the vehicles building).

The heroes for the eldar are a big let down after the heroes from the other faction

The Autarch ultimate skill is one of the highest eco buff. He's also able to crush a tank single-handedly once every 10 turns.
The Farseer on a motojet allows you to crush anything tanky with Doom, and can insta-kill heroes with his Mind War.
The Spirit is your only healer and a pretty cheap support hero overall.

While their heroes are not must have (like say, Chaos heroes), they all bring very interesting tools to your arsenal.
I usually can't fit heroes in my builds, but I still don't find them weak. It's just the meta in PvP usually doesn't allow to spend time getting them.

[TemplarGR]

Yeah, Eldar seem somewhat weak to me too. It is buffling to me that some units of theirs were heavily nerfed, for example their Wraithknight, for no reason at all. Their early units are all pathetic, the typical Eldar strategy for me is to simply ignore all early units and just rush to something viable like Wraithblades or Fire Prisms as soon as humanly possible. Then i just spam Walkers, Wraithknights, and air units, but it is a struggle reaching that endgame. I used to think that having their early units being garbage was compensation for having some strong late game units, but the late game units are mostly nerfed now anyway. It is not like Eldar have better late game units than their competition. I don't really like playing Eldar for that reason.

[Jey]

Originally posted by TemplarGR:

some units of theirs were heavily nerfed, for example their Wraithknight, for no reason at all.

You didn't check the Wraithknight stat.
33% FNP, 33% invul, blind on melee attackers. 72 HP. Annihilate all multi-model units. Can jump just in case you managed to surround it to wear it down.
All that for a measly 160 resources.

If you see no reason for it to lose 16 HP, you need to go check your eyes.

Even with 56 HP, it's an absolute monster that will crush anything that comes near with Stomp, and anything that doesn't come near with his range 3 weapons.

Seriously, complaining that Wraithknight was 'heavily' nerfed for 'no reason at all' is either full on bad faith or a lack of understanding of the game.

Their early units are all pathetic

Only if you suck.

Guardians's grenade one-hit almost every single starting unit of other factions (The only one they don't are the space marines who are more expensive than them).

Rangers will crush everything that is not a vehicle at range 3. Meanwhile considering most factions are ranged, a Ranger in forest is basically unkillable (66% ranged reduction FTW) and will safely be able to retreat after shooting one last time.

Shining Spears are everything the Necron Tomb Blades would like to be and more (They have scout, they start with 8 armor, they deal incredibly heavy damage, they have a base 33% ranged reduction, and they still have the hit&run of infantry, just in case).
The apparent squishiness of Shining Spears is misleading because due to their ranged reduction almost nothing can kill them in one hit, while they will deal incredibly heavy damage to anything be it tanks or infantry.

And all of them are T1 units.
Banshees are incredibly scary for factions relying on OW or those having low morale.
Vaul's Wrath are one of the best siege weapons (because they can also crush infantry for the lulz if need be)

We didn't even reach T5 with that (I think Vaul's Wrath are even only T3? I don't recall)


If you think only Wraithblades and Fire Prisms are good units, then the problem is not Eldars. The problem is you are a meathead that can only win by having more HP than the enemy. Play Orks or AM or something. Not Eldars.

It is not like Eldar have better late game units than their competition.

Yeah, it's not like the Scorpion is at worst the second best T10 unit (and in my opinion it really is the best one. Stormsurge requires too much setup to grow into its full power).
It's not like their T7 air unit is so powerful, it can by itself crush two impossible AI army.
It's not like Wraithknight or Hemlock can shut down any infantry/monstrous creature based army.



And I can't even be blamed of being just a PvP player, I did Rhana Dandra again recently.
First time, my infantry got defeated by Heldrakes, otherwise I would have destroyed an AI before turn 60. (on standard speed).
Second time, my Crimson Hunters destroyed the Heldrakes, and the Scorpions mopped up whatever remained.

If I can defeat two allied impossible AI with Eldars while facing them head on, I see no reason to call Eldars weak in PvE.

If you want to challenge my opinion on PvP grounds, I'm always ready for a game. Otherwise, your opinion has no basis.

[TemplarGR]

Yeah yeah yeah, typical response "if you disagree, you suck at the game". No i don't suck, the Eldar suck, and it is not just me with that opinion.

[Jey]

And yet, you obviously preferred to not challenge my opinion in a real situation.