The eldar have a wide range of support weapons and vehicles available to them. These range from the small and manouverable jet bikes to the (soon to be released) falcon grav tank. This page will discuss the uses of these weapons.

Jet Bikes

These are effectively motorbikes that hover and are fitted with a couple of powerfull shucats at the front. They cost 20 points plus the rider (who is usually a guardian, but many other eldar squads and characters can also use jet bikes) which is relatively cheap. This means that a guardian squad of 5 jet bikes costs about 150 points.

Jet bike squads such as this have two main uses in the game,

1. To take out hard to reach targets.

2. To provide mobile fire support for the foot troops.

The first role relies on their high movement rate and ability to fly over obstructions to bypass the enemy front line and bring their weapons to bear on softer targets at the rear. This is a dangerous tactic though, and often your squad will be decimated by enemy fire (they will be his number one target). If they are equiped with krak grenades then they can make hit and run attacks on enemy vehicles.

The fire support role relies on their ability to make pop up attacks. I often use them to support attacking hand to hand units (such as harlequins and banshees) by following them forward and popping up in the shooting phase to shoot at enemy troops. One jetbike squad has the same firepower as ten dire avengers so the effect can be quite spectacular.

Viper

This is a larger varient of the jet bike. It is usually equipped with forward facing shucats and a gunner opperating a shucannon on a rotating platform at the rear. This makes it roughly equivelant to 2 normal jet bikes. A squad of three of these would be very effective, but they are quite weakly armoured, so care should be taken to avoid being exposed to too much enemy weapons fire.

Falcon

This model is yet to be released, but it is expected to be able to carry up to 5 troops and to be armed with a scatter laser and lascannon. This will make it roughly equivelant to the space marine razorback, although, being a skimmer it should be faster. In other words, this is no answer to the lemun russ, but it will allow you to quickly get your troops to where they are needed. 

Anti Grav Platforms

These are the most important weapons in the eldar support section. They can be equiped with a range of heavy and support weapons, including lascannons, heavy plasma guns, scatter lasers, vibro cannons and distortion cannons. They provide the eldar with their most ecenomic way of having these weapons (much cheaper than dreadnaughts and war walkers). 

At first sight they may seem a bit vulnerable, with armour value 10 and guardian crew, but in practice they are quite hard to get rid of and they can easily be screened with guardians. The reason why they are so tough is that they have 2 crew members, and only one is required to opperate the gun. If their weapon is destroyed they can still be used to man other weapons where the crew has been killed. Heavy weapon platforms are also allowed to move and fire in the same turn, this is a big advantage over other armys heavy weapons. 

I would recommend using at least 2 of these per 1000 points because of their relatively low cost and the massive firepower that they can provide. My personal favourite is the distortion cannon for its ability to kill even the toughest vehicle or character with ease.

War Walker

This is like 2 anti grav plaatforms on legs. It makes a very useful and very mobile heavy/support weapons platform. The standard configuration is a scatter laser and lascannon combination. This is a pretty safe bet as it gives it the ability to kill both troops and vehicles quite efficiently. In the absence of the falcon, it is in fact, the eldar answer to a tank. 

In this role it is much more efficient than the eldar dreadnaught which costs more and only carries one major weapon. However, it does have some dissadvantages, for instance, it is pretty hopeless in hand to hand, although it can inflict a lot of close combat damage against vehicles such as tanks (it can use it's lascannon as a close combat weapon against vehicles). 

It is also a surprisingly durable vehicle, give it ablative armour and a spirit stone and it will take a hell of a lot of shooting to destroy it. I also give mine the crystal targeting matrix which makes it a great bike and land speeder killer, and all for under 200 points!

Dreadnaught

The eldar dreadnaught is a machine that is perfect for supporting infantry attacks. Mine has a scatter laser, which along with the shucat and flamer make it great for cutting a swathe through the enemy troops. It can also look after itself in hand to hand with a weapon skill of 6, and if you see a juicy looking lemun russ in charge range, go for it!

On the other hand though, it is quite costly, and don't even think of trying to trade shots with a space marine dreadnaught, your only real chance is to charge him. Better to leave the shooting to anti grav platforms and war walkers.