Holy Tools for use against the nefarious Xenos (Dark angels in need of help vs eldar)

[carny]

Hi everybody.

My Dark Angels are really struggling against the cruel eldar.
We usually play 1500 pts (though I suspect we might gradudate to 1850 soon) and we have no Fortifications/no fliers.

Allies are allowed, although overtly cheesy allied detachments would probably be frowned upon.

The meta is quite small.
There is me (and another irregular) with Dark Angels.
A necron player, a Tau player, an eldar army, a demon army, 2CSm and budding spacemarine army. In addition I suspect that a tyranid player will arrive soon.
I am having a somewhat respectable win/loss ratio against the csm, necrons, tau and demons, but not the Eldar. Specifically I am having huge trouble with his avatar (not to mention the sheer number of insanely good guns he have)
Games usually unfold the effect of his avatar attacking, me being forced to avoid it and his heavy weaponry killing my disorganised army. What to do?


He usually brings a nice diverse list (I am NOT accusing him of cheese):
4-5 troops: Blob og Guardians (usually with warlock/weapons platform), Dire avenger Squad (usually without wave serpent, thankfully); rangers and 1-2 units of jetbikes.
His elite Almost always contain FIRE DRAGONS (usually these start the game in a falcon). Occasionally wraithguard.
His fast attack has been very diverse, but he seems to be solidifying around Warp Spiders-

Heavy support is usually heavily represented, recurring "favorites" being: Reapers, aforementione Falcons.

My army is usually greenwing with a sprinkle og the 'Wings.


Core is librarian with a devastator squad (lascannon)
Rhino mounted tacticals (plas/HB)
scouts and a ravenwing attack squadron. (plasmaguns)
I have a quite a few terminators and a dreadnought, but they have let me down. My Humble Predator (autocannon/bolters- is that an annihilator is often mvp)


So do you have suggestions for units I "need" or just good anti-eldar tactics?

[interrogator_chaplain]

You could do what I'm doing next weekend and pick up a new Knight. :D

But seriously, what units are giving you the biggest problems? Because honestly, you and me are in the same boat and Eldar is always going to give us big problems, but they can be mitigated. So what's giving you the biggest problems?

I will say that if the Fire Dragons are constantly making an appearance, you should trip him up by bringing nothing with AV values.

[dasher03]

Before I graduated college there was a guy who played Eldar and Dark Eldar and did so with pretty ruthless efficacy. Playing Dark Angels is fun, but it is also challenging to create a list that actually works well together.

First of all, you need to take at least one sacred standard. They always earn their points back. FNP terminators causes some major rage.

What I really saw the difference with, especially against an army with majority low T (<4) is that the salvo banner with Ravenwing outputs a massive amount of damage. Taking full squads and dividing into combat squads minimizes the damage that he can put out with single units and only gives you more flexibility. Eldar, unless they're all wraithguard (I have no solution for that cheese-fest), are the quintessential glass cannon and cannot stand-up to any volume of shots so:
try to flank him (such that not all of his units can draw LoS) with at least 2 full RW squads and a RW command squad, keep your command squad safe, and position the rest of your army (drop pods?) to eventually gain use from the banner.

[Tyrendian]

You could do what I'm doing next weekend and pick up a new Knight. :D

But seriously, what units are giving you the biggest problems? Because honestly, you and me are in the same boat and Eldar is always going to give us big problems, but they can be mitigated. So what's giving you the biggest problems?

I will say that if the Fire Dragons are constantly making an appearance, you should trip him up by bringing nothing with AV values.

Problem with that idea is, then his anti-Infantry firepower will shred you that much easier... and it's not like Fire Dragons were bad at killing Terminators either...
If the Avatar is giving you trouble, maybe try to keep a unit of Deathwing Knights near where he seems to be going? Avatars don't like Thunder Hammer Terminators, much less ones that even hit them on 4s (Knights do have WS5 don't they? I don't have the DA book myself, just seem to remember something like that...) - well for one round at least your weapons are equivalent to Thunder Hammers...

[Blood Shadow]

Have you considered Ally options? Some allied GK will help hammer the Avatar, and let's be fair are quite useful against most armies.....other than that it seems you're struggling with your rate of fire, perhaps another Pred or perhaps some 2xHB Landspeeders to accompany the ravenwing?

[Dave Mcturk]

shouldnt be helping as im xenos scum.:p

but pop some missile launchers in where you can and plenty of plasma and you can give eldar a bit more of a problem, not sure if you can have vindicator= but footdar really dont like them and you can whizz rhinos up as a 'smoke' screen or vice versa depending

keep your formation relatively tight and get in his face enough to get firepower up and not far enough to attract a maddened avatar

overlapping fields of fire are your best bet... and even an avatar doesnt like a face full of lascannon/plasma... the avatar cant exactly 'hide' so force him out in the open when you can...

the newdar codex has certainly 'underpointed' some of the eldar units/weapons... but unless you want to start 'house ruling' ... just keep the 'right' distance and your chances will improve