Planetstrike! Early thoughts on Attack and Defense for the Eldar.

I picked up Planetstrike last weekend. After going through the book I'm eager to get a game in. I've come up with a few ideas for the Eldar to tryout when I do play.

When Attacking:
Take Swooping Hawks. Before you laugh too loud hear me out.
There is a strategem that grants d3 units Attack grenades, defensive grenades and Meltabombs. All infantry can deepstrike in Planetstrike, and any unit that already has the deepstrike ability can assault the turn it deepstrikes. There is also an Eldar only when attacking strategem that allows for the re-roll of deepstrikes.

So taking Both the Metlabomb and the re-roll deepstrikes strategems...pretty much locks in that you will be hitting one of the bastions the first turn with 5 meltabombs. Could you also do this with Warp Spiders? Yeah, but they don't have fleet, so you have a greater chance of deviating out of assault range.

As the attacker you can take 6 Fast Attacks, so that's plenty of room to add to your current build, if you run with a maxed Fast attack build.

The downside is after you drop the building, there is a good chance your Hawks will be standing right next to the unit that was just in the building. So the following when your opponent goes, your hawks will be taking fire or assaulted. Just hope that unit gets Pinned when the Bastion blows up. Actually once your opponent sees what the Hawks can do, they won't be around for another turn anyway. But then, he will be shooting at your Hawks and not any really valuable units. ;)

Other armies will have this ability, but how many units in the game have Deepstrike and Fleet? Two, Three? Loosing a bastion on the first turn might just rattle your opponent for the rest of the game.

On Defense:
Six Heavys...oh my. Reapers in your Bastions (or whatever the eldar call their big Bunkers). Wraithlords on the perimeter. Everything else I would leave in reserve or at home. Tanks are too fragile if they are not moving, and the bombardment would just wreck them and any war walkers you may have.

House Rules
Eventually GW will comeout with some rules for the Eldar Wraith/Warp gate to be used in Planetstrike. Until then I've been thinking about how to tie mine in should the Eldar be on Defense. Tweeking the rules of the Landing Pad, came up with the following.

Eldar Wraithgate: AV 14, One Eldar unit per turn may enter the table through the Wraithgate. The unit must be entering from Reserves and counts as Deepstriking with No deviation roll needed. The initial Deepstriking model placed must be placed within 6" of the front edge of the Wraithgate, and in the front 180 degree arc of the wraithgate. (No warping in on the back side of the wraithgate). Units warping in recieve a 4+ cover save until the start of the next Eldar turn.

I figure this fits the Eldar fluff, not having the numbers to crew defensive posts, they will quickly warp in defenders when they are needed. Each Wraithgate should count as an objective. I'll be using my terrain piece seen in the last entry as three seperate Wraithgates. Now I just need to make up some Eldar themed Bastions and Defense Lines...and finish painting the Wraithgate. Sorry to the regular readers of this Blog, My Guard army has taken priority for the moment.

Thats all for now...

Work in Progress...Large Eldar Wraithgate

Wraith Gate, Warp Gate, Way Gate...I've heard it called all of these.

Here is my work in progress of a large Wraithgate. Inspired by the Dawn of War pc game. I'm sure we will find a use for this in Apoc games or some scenarios.



I wanted it to be big enough to warp in Falcons and Wave Serpents. Hopefully the new Planetstrike book will have some rules for a Wraithgate in it.

Random Eldar Thoughts...

I won't deny it. My focus has been on my guard army over the last month or so. I've been caught up in the wave of excitement along with most everyone else who owns an Imperial Guard army. But I have not forgotten my primary force.

Over the last few months I have been slowly teaching my friend Fabby the game. We have played a few games of (old codex) Guard vs. Marines, and Eldar vs. Marines, with Fabby playin the Vanilla Marines each time. We have gone over some of the rumored releases with the new Codex and he wants to give the guard a try.

What does any of this Have to do with the Eldar? Well I've been mulling over an eldar force in my head that I would use to face a Horde army. My Primary Eldar army is designed to take the dice out of my opponents hands and deny a saving throw whenever possible. Banshees, Wraithguard, Fire Dragons, Pathfinders, Wraithlords, Falcon, Avatar... I've played this force so much I have fogotten how the other half lives. So here is my "Anti-Horde" force that i will pit against Fabby the next time we play. The idea was for me to try units that I don't normally play with.

HQ: Autarch (Wings, Fusion Gun, Power weapon, MandiBlasters)
HQ: Baharroth (Swooping Hawks Phoenix Lord)

Elite: Scorpions (Full squad w/Exarch, both powers, biting blade)

Troops: Pathfinders (5 in the group)
Troops: Jetbikes (10 with 3 cannons)
Troops: Dire Avengers (full squad w/Exarch Bladestorm, Wave Serp w/ BLance)

Fast Attack: Warp Spiders (4 with Exarch, dual spinners and blades, withdraw)
Fast Attack: Swooping Hawks (5 With Exarch, both powers)
Fast Attack: Swooping Hawks (5 to fly with Baharroth)

Heavy: 3 War Walkers (Scatter Laser X6)
Heavy: Falcon (Holofield, BLance)

The idea is to Reserve, Deep Strike, and Outflank with almost everything. Pathfinders might set up depending on the mission. Yoyo with the hawks, mostly cause I have yet to try it. Break the Autarch away to pop a Leman Russ. Falcon is a Russ hunter, with the BL for when I lose a weapon. Hawks will hunt tanks only if needed.

Will let you know how it turns out.

Next random Eldar thought was after I saw the pics of the French Games Day. I found my next Eldar purchase.


I have always thought of the Wraithsword as a waste. I would rather have my Wraithlords equipped with two heavy weapons and trust my dice to hit in close combat. The Re-Roll the sword gives just is not worth it to me...until now. The idea of a Banshee Wraithlord appeals to me. one Wraithlord kit and a ton of Greenstuff. Somehow model the two flamers into the "Banshee mask" so it would still gets the "Scream". Pistol grip the other weapon...probably a Shuriken Cannon to keep the points lower, but maybe a Brightlance to keep the versitilty.

Thats all for now...

Strategems and Objective Markers

I made these Strategem Markers a while ago, after CoD first came out. With the Importence of Objectives in 5th...they naturally became two of my objective markers for my Eldar force.

#1) Extra Ammo, or one of the Tunnel Exits. Made from a left over Falcon hatch, spare from the wave serpent converstion.



#2) Beacon / Sensor. Made from scrap falcon parts, and a shiled from an old Mekton Mini.



That's all I have done for now.

Lone Pilgrim Painting Points

Browsing some of the other 40k Blogs out there I stumbled across this...

An inventive system for tracking one's progress painting and compare it with others was posted awhile back on Lone Pilgrim. It is a cool system that is being picked up by some blogs, so I have decided that I will join in the fun.

The basics of the system are that a participant earns points for each model painted. The number of points earned depends on the size of the model.

Infantry = 1 point
Cavalry, bikes, or 40mm Monsters (Ogryns) = 2 points
Heavy Weapons Team = 3 Points
Monster or Dreadnought = 5 points
Vehicle = 10 points
Superheavy vehicle = 20 points

Special Thanks to Lone Pilgrim for introducing such a fun idea to the 40K blogsphere.

So far this year I have...0 Points.

I do have 50 points sitting on my painting table at the moment. But none are Eldar.

My goal is 150 points by the end of the year. 100 points of Guard, 25 points of Eldar, 25 points of Marines.

Making of the Autarch

When the latest Eldar Codex came out, a new HQ unit was introduced, The Autarch.

Lets look at the other two HQ units first. The Farseer is a psycher whose primary duty is making the units around him better. The Avatar, is a close combat Monsterous creature. The Autarch, is like a one man version of the Eldar army, flexible and can be equipped to do just about anything.

I had to make one, not so much to use because the other two HQ are already awesome. More of a figurehead for my army. Going though my spare minis I had an extra version of almost all the 2nd editon exarchs. This would guide some of my choices.

First choice was if I should equip him with any of the movement options. I was pretty limited, not having an extra Jetbike or Warp-spider jump pack, but I did have a a set of Exarch swooping hawk wings. Giving him the ability to move about the field fast is key. Knowing my dice I didn't want to risk an HQ with that extra Warp-spider jump. The Jet bike would have opened up more weapon options, but I only have one unit of Jetbikes so he could only hideout in one unit. With the wings, I get the benefit of making him jump infantry, and hiding him in just about any unit, or in a transport if I wanted.

Second Choice was Ranged Weapons...Which lead to the question what did I want him to do? I figured I would make him a one man Tank / Monsterous creature / independant character hunter. The Fusion Gun was the only choice...Str8 AP1 Assault 1 Melta. The 6 WS means he will rarely miss, the AP1 melta means anything he hits that has an Armor value will most likely be toast. Characters will be insta killed unless they have a Toughness of 5+.

Finally was his close combat setup. I could put either a Banshee mask or Maniblasters on him, Where his Init was already one of the highest in the game...why take the mask? The Mandiblaster would give him an extra attack. Next up power weapon or scorpion sword? The +1 strength given by the scorp sword would be nice given his S3...But I much rather take dice out of my opponents hands. The power weapon that you don't get an armor save against is much more valuable.

So how to model this guy. It took me an old Dark Reaper exarch, an old Swooping Hawk exarch and a Fusion Gun from the very old guardian box.

This mod was not too tough...

1) Cut the heads off both exarchs and swap them. Be careful not to rough up the skull necklace on the Reaper body when doing this, as the reaper will be the body of the Autarch.

2) Cut the Shuriken Pistol off the Reaper Exarch at the just above the fist.

3) (Toughest part) Cut the shuriken pistol in half lenghtwise right down the "barrel" from top to bottom leaving a right and left half.

4) Attach the Swooping hawk head to the Reaper body.

5) Attach the halfs of the shuriken pistol to the sides of the hawks head (Mandiblasters)

6) Attach Wings, you will have to bend these out a bit to get around the hawk helmet, but it looks much better with them bent back.

7) Attach Fusion gun.

The finished product...

Painting this guy up was fun. The "Power weapon" is one of the old Web of skulls. Which was an awesome weapon in it's day...however it is no longer available to the Eldar. So this was my 1st attempt at painting a glowing effect on a mini. The "Green" glow I drybrushed down the chains of the weapon, onto the helmet...not quite what I was shooting for...but I learned a bit to try this in again the future.

I actually used this guy in one fight and was pretty pleased with how he did. Jumped out of a unit and popped a Nurgle Dreadie...then hopped over and tied up a swarm of nurgle marines for a few turns before croakin. This was all by himself, leaving the rest of my army to run amuck. Paid for himself in that fight.

Troops with Firepower.

I've always kinda liked Dire Avengers. But when they got nerfed and the range of their Shuriken Catapult dropped to 12" in 3rd edition...they hit the shelf for a LONG time. The 4th Edition codex saw the range of their Shuriken cats extend to 18". Still shorter than marines bolter of 24", but a huge improvement.


Another change was the ability of the Exarch to "Bladestorm"...a skill that allows all shuriken cats in the unit to fire one extra shot in the fire phase. Going from 22 shots to 33 shots is kinda handy when a unti of orcs is about to charge yah. Downside is you don't get to shoot the next turn...but chances are you will be in hand to hand anyway.


I only had a small unit of 5 Dire Avengers painted up, back from 2nd edition when they came only in units of 5. So with the new Troop being necessary, I had to increase the numbers of this unit. The tell tale item that makes a Dire Avenger is the roman style headdress on the helmet. Going through some of my older minis, I had a bunch of the very old Eldar Guardian figs that had a roman headdress on their helmets. So little dip in some Pine Sol to strip the paint, some time of the workbench...and I have a full squad of 10 Dire Avengers.

Toughest Troops in the game.

With the changes brought about by 5th edition Troops are very necessary. I'll admit in piror editions, I took the minimum amount of troops that were required. One edition allowed a squad of 3 Rangers as a Troop choice. Six figures filled out the whole two squads of troops. Now that 2/3 of the games depend upon grabbing and holding objectives with Troops, haveing solid units for troops are a must.


Eldar on the whole are a very fragile bunch. Toughness 3 across the board. However the Wraithguard are another story. Their Toughness of 6 and their armor save of 3+ makes them a very sturdy unit. Put in a Warlock, and you don't have to worry about their wraithsight weakness. Give the warlock the Conceal power and they will get a mobile 5+ coversave. Throw a farseer next to them with Fortune...letting them re-roll their saves and you have the toughest unit in the game to move off an objective. Just keep a Close Combat unit nearby to help incase they get swarmed.


I had 5 Wraithguard painted up, but they only count as troop chioce if you have 10 in the unit. You will find through all three of these Army Projects that I am a cheap bastard when it comes to gaming. I'm not about to dish out $50-$75 for 5 minis. You really need a plastic Wraithgurd box GW. Anyway...I had some of the really old Epic Eldar Knights, and one of the ancient Eldar Ghostwarriors. They are close enough to the Wraithguard that i painted them up to finish the unit.

Starting Point...

So Why Alaitoc over the other craftworlds?

1) Color...I wanted a mostly Blue army. Their primary colors are blue and yellow, over the years I changed to using white rather than yellow for my stuff, keeping bits of yellow highlights.

2) The use of Rangers. Just seemed to fit...Rangerrob should use an army that uses rangers.

So here is what I have painted at this point...

HQ
Eldrad
Farseer
Avatar
all the Phoenix Lords
Autarch
3 Warlocks

Elites
10 Banshees with Exarch
10 Scorpions with Exarch
6 Fire Dragons with Exarch
10 Wraithguard
Waveserpent Transport

Troops
30 Guardians and 2 weapon platforms
10 Dire avengers w/ exarch
10 Jetbikes...3 are with Shuriken cannons
6 Rangers/pathfinders

Fast Attack
6 Swooping Hawks with Exarch
5 Warp Spiders w/ Exarch

Heavy
7 Reapers with Exarch
Falcon
Wraithlord
3 Warwalkers with twin scatter lasers

That's just the painted stuff...unpainted stuff coming soon.

The Three Army Project...Day #1

Hey Folks,

Welcome to my Three Army Project. I have over the years collected many miniatures for the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40k. The three being Eldar, Imperial Guard and Space Marines.
So I have created three blogs, one of each army in an effort to kickstart my painting again. You will see links to the other blogs over to the right.

When I started this blog project I would say I'm 60-70% finished with my Eldar. The Mordian Iron Guard are assembled and primed, and one whole figure has been painted, of the 60 or so that I have. The Space Marines are about 25% done.

With each of these sites, I intend to write a little background fluff for each of the armies. Give reasons for why and how I collected and painted the minis. To show off my works in progress, and to hopefully inspire my friends to do the same. Finally to have a historical record for my kids to look at when they choose one of these armies for their own.

Hope you enjoy...
RangerRob