Footdar - what goes into a good list.

[eagleboy7259]

I've seen it on BoLS, I haven't seen it in any store so I haven't had the chance to play against it. As the title says, what exactly goes into a good Footdar list? I mean it seems that people just throw whatever Eldar infantry they have into the army and then just expect it to win because its "footdar".

Like any Eldar list, you need a Farseer, however does that old standard that the only Seer Council you should take should be a biker council still apply? Do Dark Reapers actually become viable? Or 10 Strong Wraithguard?

What are your thoughts on this BoLS? Is it Elfzilla w/ troops or are you better off diversifying and digging deep into the Eldar trick bag and busting out the Support Platforms?

[DarkLink]

Guardians and dire avengers, backed up by fire dragons or dark reapers, eldrad, the avatar, wraithlords and warwalkers. You can throw in one or two other aspects depending on point levels.

The army can put out a lot of short range firepower, and thanks to fortune and cover saves can be very resilient to long range shooting. It lacks significant heavy long range firepower, however, and if a good opponent manages to ram their army down its throat then it can get tied up in its own deployment zone and won't be able to go out and contest objectives. It also relies very heavily on the avatar and wraithlords to counter assault stuff, otherwise most any cc army will tear up the infantry as they lack vehicles.

The list can do pretty well in the hands of a good player (and there are some players with a very good showing at tournaments with this list), but some people think it's the most idiotic army out there. It has some big inherent weakness that take a lot of experience and practice to be able to work around, and even then there are some things it can't do. Most people don't know how to face it, though, and frankly results don't lie. A great player with an ok list can be better than a good player with a perfect list.

I don't have a whole lot of personal experience facing it, but I've seen several games with it in action, and I know the guy who put that article up on BOLS who kinda started the whole thing. He has a talent for winning with lists that most people wouldn't think would work well, and this is kinda one of those cases.

[thecactusman17]

The Footdar lists I've seen do well by maximizing the mid to high strength firepower in the army. Instead of Dark Reapers, expect to see a lot of Rangers, Guardians with Heavy Weapons, and Warwalkers. The Army tends to focus around either two farseers, or a farseer and an Avatar. The farseer's primary job is to fortune and/or Guide the shooting units. The Avatar is there to countercharge if possible and keep your units from getting pinned or fleeing from shooting if not.

I've only faced this army playing mechanized Dark Eldar, and the huge amount of S6 at long range that Eldar put on the table was what ultimately killed me. Other, beefier mech armies like Marines or Guard will have an easier time but may still be surprised at what this can do in terms of raw firepower output even at long range.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, it's kinda funny but normal Eldar are one of the best armies in the game to face DE with. Lance weapons aren't of much use against Eldar, Eldar can spam str 6 like no one's business, Eldar vehicles can keep up with DE ones pretty well, etc.

[Kasrkar]

Hoi,
I've been playing eldar for about 2 years, and recently started using Footdar, so allow me to give some help. I haven't lost a game yet with my Footdar, and I have faced IG, space wolves, and blood angels. I typically play 1k-1500, so lemme throw up my 1500 list and some pointers.
-Eldrad (necessary for any eldar army at this point)
-Avatar (necessary for any eldar army at this point, he is pretty much unstoppable when fortuned)
-10 banshees (the threat that banshees produce is great, and if they're in cover and fortuned, they aren't quite as fragile. I took scorpions for a while for their survivability, but I switched back to banshees because of my inability to roll 3+, so they are interchangable. I find 1 cc elite squad a good thing for Footdar)
-10 fire dragons (At 1500, a minimum of 2 squads is mandatory)
-10 fire dragons
-10 guardians, scatter laser (great cheap unit. Keep them out of LoS or in cover, or both)
-10 guardians, scatter laser
-10 guardians, scatter laser
-10 guardians, scatter laser
-10 guardians, scatter laser
-3 war walkers, 2 SLs on each (never not take war walkers)

So, as a summary, I rely on a lot of side armor shots, but I can bait people pretty easily with my other units. As for the many units I don't take, reapers are way overpriced, dire avengers are too short range and unreliable to be of much use to me, wraithguard and wraithlords rely too much on toughness, and the lack of an invuln save really waters down their effectiveness. I've found that the only decent troops for Footdar are rangers (overpriced) and guardians (less overpriced). As for the fire dragons, I almost always with flank them. If you space your units right, the enemy will load everything into the fortuned avatar, and my fire dragons actually never take many shots. As for the avatar, he is pretty much the thing holding this army together. I don't even really use his fearless thing, as the guardians almost never get shot at. Just throw the avatar into the enemy and he will keep them busy enough for the rest of your dudes to get into there and cripple stuff. Either that or the avatar will just wreck them and win you the game. War walkers are purely fire support, and have some serious killing power.
Phew, so, that's pretty much it. Hope this was some help. :D

[eagleboy7259]

So basically Footdar is like Hordedar, and you're trying to overwhlem the enemy with the number of wounds, simular to Green Tide Orks or Guant based Tyranids?

How do you feel about taking Harlequins in the place of Banshees? I'd think that Viel of Tears would negate the poorer armor, and even then the sheriker launcher and 5++ could be pretty worthwhile on their own merit.

What do you do against Mech? Clearly 1 unit of Fire Dragons, even at full strength, can't content with armor heavy lists, especially ones that can sit comfortibly outside of the Melta range and inflict damage on you. Do you put Embolden Warlocks with Spears in the Guardian Squads or something else? Wraithlords are one fo the few units in the Eldar book that can put out more than one decently ranged anti-tank shot put turn. War Walkers can do it, but they are fragile, Falcons can too but they end up being sooo expsenive and BS 3 is a major detractor.

[DarkLink]

War walkers are great against light vehicles, but for heavy armor you need wraithlords with bright lances or something similar, and even then you won't like land raiders much. Most footdar lists I've seen have 2 wraithlords and 3 war walkers, for the mix of firepower. Find somewhere you can put the wraithlords to get cover and then they're neigh invulnerable to most shooting.

And if you can spare the points, then yes, Harlequins with Veil of Tears work very well here. They're just somewhat more expensive than banshees.

[thecactusman17]

If I have to take a Wraithlord in one of these lists, I would take all three and give them each a Lance and a Shuriken Cannon. They will do lots of wound on 2+ damage to everyone and tear through light to miedium armor very quickly.

[DarkLink]

If you're going to take wraithlords, take bright lances. War walkers do scatter laser spam much better than wraithlords, and footdar need the extra AT.

[eagleboy7259]

So no spear on the warlocks? and EML & Bright Lance on the Wraithlord?

What about Support Platforms? I've seen people having good luck running D-Cannons and Vibro Cannons. They seem fragile but cheap enough and capable of bringing the pain. Are they worthwhile?

[Kasrkar]

Yes, footdar have acted for me in a similar way that orks would. The thing is, in the average 1500 point game, I'll lose about 5-7 models on avg. I've had 4 games now where I haven't had to remove a single model.
The guardians, which are the majority of my models, rarely get shot at. This is because there are scarier things on my enemy's mind. 90% of the time this is either the avatar or the war walkers. These are the most effective units to bait with, because of that.
Basically, for mech heavy, or heavy armor, it relies completely on unit placement. I've played a 500 point game where I had nothing over S6 and I was facing 2 vindicators. With some decent baiting and placement, both were dead by turn 3.
As I said above, unit placement is key. Last time I played against IG, he took 2 russes at 1k. I managed to bait the russes with my war walkers while the fire dragons ran up and flanked them through cover. Normally, I would leave stuff like russes and land raiders to the avatar, but taking eldrad and the avatar in 1k would have been rough.
I have killed both land raiders and russes with my footdar without much problem. The thing that is so potent about the army is the amount of synergy possible with all of the eldar infantry.
As far as wraithlords go, they just don't dazzle me as much anymore. There are better places to spend 120+ points.
For support weapons, I say maybe. I've tried out both D-cannons and vibro cannons, and vibro cannons are meh at best. D-cannons have a lot of kill potential, but I'm still a little put off by their lack of durability.

[Kasrkar]

Oh yeah, and harlequins are a no-no for me. :)
I've tried harlies, but 270-310 points for a squad really limits what else you can put in the army. 300 is almost twice as much as the banshees. For comparable durability, comparable kill-power (depending on what you're up against), and the lack of a few rules, the banshees save me about 150 points.
Harlequins are great, but they take up too much of my army for a simple 10 man. Yes, I could try 5-8 man, but it just doesn't feel right.
I've also toyed with a small seer council and some wraithguard, but bare banshees or scorpions work best in my experience.
I also play IG (my first army), and with the new codex, a rule implanted itsself into my brain for building army lists. That rule is 'Keep it cheap'. :p

[DarkLink]

Incidentally, I just played and beat a footdar army in a tournament. The trick is, you need to damage or neutralize a few key components of the army, then strip away the bubble wrap and tie up as much of the army in combat as possible. Against my opponent, that meant shooting his wraithlords and fire dragons, and drawing off the avatar with my Grand Master. The avatar eventually won combat, and the fire dragons managed to kill one of my two Land Raiders, but I kept him off my objective and the other Land Raider dumped a Gk squad onto his objective and tied up several units on top of it.

[KenStorm989]

Thanks for this discussion folks...new Eldar player here, really liked these tips!

[Da Gargoyle]

Late post here. I have been an eldar for a couple of years and my army has a core of footdar. Usually guardians with a warlock and scatter laser, a sqd of rangers upgraded to pathfinder and a storm guardian sqd with warlock and two fusion guns, unless its orks or nids. Then I go for the flamers.

I always carry a cc unit, usually scorpions because I am gaming mostly IG and orks at the moment. Though I kept them for a game against SM night lords. He fielded his squads in 5 man units so I thought it would be fun to chop em up. I field Dragons and an Autarch. The autarch either joins the scorpions or the dragons

I use two wave serpents with missiles or one of them with a bright lance. Upgrade the defensive weaponry to a cannon and there is a bit of anti infantry. These carry the dragons and cc troops accross the battle field to do the nasty on the other side. They really are the best value for vehicles.

I have dark reapers who become fire magnets for any oppo facing me. I did field a sqd of 10 wraithguard but lost the roll off and lost the unit first turn. Primarily because we were using table quarters and the marine chose the quarter with cover. (Cover independantly set up so no skullduggery there). Mind you, while everything hit the wraiths 1st turn, I was left with a lot of return fire power that I focussed on the infantry.

I am not used to psykers and have not successfully used one. Keep losing to perils of the warp on the limited games I have played them in. Though mind war seems to be a very strategical type of attack as you get to choose the victim.