Fire power on the wing and good for fast troop transportation too. In this section we will be looking at the Eldar troop choices and their tactics.

• Also see: WH40k General Eldar Tactics

General Eldar Troop Tactics

Even though the 40k Eldar are usually an Elite heavy army, you will still need 2 units of Troops. With this being the case, you are advised to know how best to use them.

Eldar Guardian Tactics

The Eldar Guardians are the units that keep the coherency of the Eldar army together. As such they are often over looked, but a critical section of the army.

Guardians as Assault Support Units

Guardians can be used in two main formations. Without a heavy weapon platform, the Eldar Guardians are Fleet of Foot troops with short range assault ballistic weapons. This means that they can move around the table providing close ranges fire support to an assaulting unit just before the Striking Scorpions, Howling Banshees, Warp Spiders dive in and finish off the remains of the squad.

To echo what I have written in the General Eldar Tactics section, this tactic works best when they pick off isolated units, and finish them off before the enemy units has a change to counter assault. Also this form of Eldar Guardian units is best kept to a number that can be transported in a Wave Serpent to give the Eldar Guardians a method of quickly dashing to an area where the enemy have become exposed.

Eldar Storm Guardians

One way to enhance your Eldar Guardians for close Assault is to upgrade one of he Eldar Guardian units to be a Eldar Storm Guardian unit. This upgrade has no points cost, and arms the Guardians with a Shrunken Pistol and a second close combat weapon. This means that they become a moderately good assault units.

If you know what opponent you are facing, you may want to take a Fusion Gun or Flamer or two. Taking these options will add a points cost, and reduces the number of attacks you have in the assault phase, but used correctly, they can be used to thin out the enemy ranks, or in the case of the fusion guns, add some tank busting ability to the squad.

Eldar Guardians with Heavy Weapons

With a Heavy Weapons platform the Eldar Guardians make a good battle line when you have an objective that you need to defend. Defending Support Weapon Batteries spring to mind.

One feature of the Eldar Guardians that is often over looked is that you can have sizeable squads of Guardians. With a squad of 20 Eldar Guardians, you can take a fair number of casualties before you need to think about break tests. Added to this is the fact that the Eldar Guardians have a high leadership score and the presence of a Warlock can enhance this ability, and you have a unit that is going to be sticking around.

Please be aware that even though the Eldar Guardians have a heavy weapon they do not have to be rooted to the spot. As the Heavy weapon is mounted on a weapons platform they can be used as assault weapons. This means that the Guardians still have fleet of foot even though they have a heavy weapon with them. Strategically this is brilliant as it allows you to form and reform your battle lines in a fluid formless fashion that can adapt to the battle as in commences.

Eldar Warlocks and Guardian Units

Regardless of the formation of your Eldar Guardian units you can take a Eldar Warlock too. You would do this if you have enough points as the Eldar Warlock’s psychic powers do enhance the Guardian units considerably. you will want to pick and choose which psychic power you give to your Warlock, and this will depend on the way that you aim to use the Guardian unit is the battle. Just about all of the psychic powers enhance an assault or close support Guardian Unit, but the best one to choose for defensive units is the Conceal power. This is because it will give the unit better protection from incoming fire.

Eldar Dire Avenger Tactics

The Eldar Dire Avengers are an elite version of the Eldar Guardians. They do not have a heavy weapon choice, you can not have as many in a squad, and they cost half as many points again as a Eldar Guardian. So why bother?

The reason you may want to consider adding a unit or two of guardians is that they have better Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Initiative, and Leadership scores, and the Avenger Shuriken Catapult they carry is a medium ranges weapon rater than the short ranged Shuriken Catapult that the Eldar Guardians carry. All this added together means that the Eldar Dire Avengers are much better at the close support role that I suggested than the Eldar Guardians.

Again speed will be a deciding factor on how useful the Eldar Dire Avengers are to you. So if points allow, load them in to a Wave Serpent.

Eldar Ranger Tactics

The Eldar Ranges are the scouts of the Eldar army, designed to get forward with their Eldar Long Rifle sniper rifles. The Eldar Long Rifles are heavy weapons which means that the Eldar Rangers will not be able to move and fire. This will mean that the Eldar Rangers will be rooted to one spot to be most effective. To compensate for his you will want to place the Eldar Rangers in a place where they have a good field of view and use the 36″ range of the Eldar Long Rifles.

Guardian Jetbike Squadron Tactics

At first look the Eldar Jetbike is a difficult option to see how they can work in a Warhammer 40k game. This is because they are quite expensive (you only get two for the same points cost as 3 Space Marines ) , they have short 12″ range weapon, and they are not equipped for close combat.

Exchanging a Shuriken Catapult for a medium 24″ ranged Shuriken Cannon goes go someway to fix this on smaller units. And this upgrade is recommended, but this still leaves a small 3 man unit with no special skills.

Jetbikes as support units

What this thinking misses is that maybe more than any other army, the Eldar army needs to work as a team. To this effect the Jetbikes exist to support the other units in the army. So for example before you Aspect Warriors launch an assault, the enemy units will need whittling down to size. Earlier I wrote about how the Eldar Guardians can do this with their fleet of foot. Well the Jetbikes can do the same, with extra speed.

Bate and run

The Eldar army works best when you ignore most of the enemies forces and concentrate your assault on a section that has become detached from the main force. So how to you draw out the enemy so that openings like this appear? Well you offer a prize that your opponent will not be able to resist, and will chase after. The Eldar Jetbikes fir this role as they are a high pointed unit that have the ability to get in to, and hopefully out of trouble.

Capture the Flag

Another Eldar Jetbike tactic comes at the end of the game when you are claiming objectives. The speed of the Jetbike and the fact that Eldar Jetbike units are troop choices make them perfect candidates for swooping in and capturing the prize at the last moment.

Wraithguard Troop Tactics

If you have 10 Eldar Wraithguard in a squad, then they can be counted as Troop choices. More about the Wraithguard in the Eldar Elite Tactics section.

As troops you may find that the Eldar Wraithguard as a troop choice provides you with a force with good short to medium ranged weapons, and some hand to hand close assault skills, but as the Wraithguard are relatively expensive, you will be fewer in numbers on comparison to most opponents. This is a similar situation to having a Space Marine all Terminator army, like the Dark Angel Deathwing, or a terminator heavy Space Marine army.