Eldar HQ Tactics

In this section we will look at the Eldar HQ choices and their tactics

Autarch

The Eldar Autarch is the warrior leader of the Eldar army. In the 2006 Codex Eldar we see the Eldar Autarch been upgraded from a squad leader to being a HQ choice. This means that for the first time you can have your Eldar army lead by a warrior and not a Farseer or Avatar.

The Eldar Autarch, being a HQ character has access to a wide range of wargear. This because they are usually heads of the aspect warriors. However the Codex Eldar has been written in a way that allows potentially cheesy combinations. I for example you could have an Eldar Autarch with Swooping Hawk wings and Reaper Launcher, giving you a fast, BS6 heavy weapons platform.

Farseer

The Farseer is the psychic leader of the Eldar army. He is not much good in a fight, but he has a number of psychic powers that help your army.

The best way to play a Farseer is to have towards the rear of the army. In this position he will be able to use his powers to increase the efficiency of any heavy support units you have. If the enemy do approach then he has a couple of medium ranged psychic powers that will act as a good defence.

The Farseers Strengths and weapons

The Farseer is no match in a fight against specialist close assault troops. Also it is easy to find him out numbered. For this reason you may want to add the Farseer to a unit of Eldar Guardians, or if you have the points, add a body guard of Warlocks.

Witchblade

The Farseer comes armed with a close combat weapon called a Witchblade. This is a psychic weapon, but not a power weapon.

Avatar of Khaine

The Avatar of Khaine is an impressive sized Avatar of one of the Eldar gods. In gaming terms he is closely equivalent to the Tyranid Hive Tyrant. Most of his abilities are close assault biased, so you will want him in to combat as soon as possible. Use the 'Run' special rule to move quickly across the table.

You can only have one Avatar of Khaine per army. This does mean the for larger games of 2000 points+ where you can field two or more armies, you could field one for each army! Or you may want to lay down some house rules for unique characters in larger games.

Special Rules

The Avatar of Khaine has quite a few special rules. It is worth spending time to understand them.

Daemon (Demon)

The Avatar is a Daemon so beware of those daemon weapons.
The Avatar has 3+ save and 4+ invulnerable save. Added to his Toughness of 6 and 4 wounds, this makes him very tough. You should be able to soak up lots of fire, allowing your softer troops to get to their objectives.

Fearless

Inspiring

Molten Body

The Eldar Avatar has a 'Molten Body' special rule. This means that melta, flamer and heavy flamer weapons can not harm the Avatar. This is very useful in City fight and jungle fight scenarios where flamers & melter weapons are common. The codex does mention other flamer weapons like the Space Marine 'Flamestorm Cannon' the Sisters of Battle 'Immolator' and etc. You will have to make house rules as to if these are counted as 'flamer' weapons or not.

Note Beware of the Guardsman with a bucket of water :-)

The Wailing Doom

The Avatar of Khaine is armed with 'The Wailing Doom'. This looks like a sword, but is effectively a 12" Melta assault weapon! His means that the Avatar can fire off a shot before jumping into close combat.

Monstrous Creature

The Avatar of Khaine has the Monstrous creature special rule. This in turn gives the Avatar the following special rules

Move Through Cover

The Avatar can move through difficult terrain unimpeded. This will allow you to move around the table quicker. It could be used to shake off and chasing enemy, maybe bogging them down long enough for you to hit them with a counter attack strike from other units.

Fire Two Weapons

Monstrous creatures can fire two weapons in the same turn. This does not effect the Avatar as he only has one shooting weapon, and that's an assault weapon too!

Note This rule does not let the Avatar fire a weapon and run in the same turn because to run the unit has to give up the whole of the shooting phase.

Relentless

Monstrous creatures can fire heavy weapons and move and assault. As the Avatar does not have access to any heavy weapons, this does not matter.

No Hiding

Monstrous creatures can not go to ground for extra cover saves. Also regular cover works in the same way as tanks get cover. For example, half of his body needs to be obscured by the cove from over half of the squad shooting. You will just have to cope with your 4+ invulnerable save (what a shame!)

Ignores Armour Saves

Being a monstrous creature the Avatar can hit with a big thump and ignore regular armour saves. This means that heavyly armoured troops make better targets, so ignore the scouts and attack the Space Marine Tactical Squads!

2D6+S Armour Penetration

The Avatar gets the Monstrous creature's extra D6 when rolling for armour penetration. This means the average roll will be 14. Remember that this is worked out against the vehicle's rear armour value and that he has 4 attacks, 5 attacks if he charged that turn (Land Raiders = mincemeat).

Eldar Phoenix Lord Tactics

The Phoenix Lords are the heads of the different aspect warriors sects. There are no generic Phoenix Lords, there are only named characters. If you are looking a generic version of the Phoenix Lords then you can now have a Autarch.

Asurmen

Head of the Dire Avengers. Armed with medium ranged shooting weapons and fairly decent close combat weapon, and a 4+ invulnerable save, Asurmen is the best all rounder of the Phoenix Lords. What you need to remember here is that the less you know about your opponent the more that you need to be prepared for all eventualities.

Jain Zar

The head of the Eldar Howling Banshees is Jain Zar. As the head of the Howling Banshees Jain Zar get all the wargear that a Howling Banshee can have, and gets the Eldar Phoenix Lord stats bonus on top. This makes Jain Zar a formidable close combat specialist, specially against any heavily armoured troops. Space Marine tactical units and Terminators come to mind.

Strength and Weapons

The sword, or triskele that Jain Zar carries doubles up as a short ranged shooting weapon too. And with the upgraded stats that her weapon has been given, this is no mean weapon either.

Toughness and Special Rules

As usual Jian Zar's weakness is the lack of an invulnerable save. Her 2+ regular save will be a great boost against regular weapons, but as soon as you come across a power weapon this save is useless. Also at T4 and weapon of S8 and above will instant kill. Las Cannons and Space Marine Power Fists spring to mind. The aim then is to hit hard and fast, and kill any enemy with power weapons as soon as possible. As this is a theme that runs through many of the Eldar assault units, you should not have too much difficulty is finding units that will complement this strategy.

Baharroth

Baharroth is the Phoenix Lord for the Eldar Swooping Hawk aspect warriors.