wtorek, 31 marca 2020

Eldar soup vs disciples of Tzeentch

Today I had a chance to lead my weird army against Thousand Sons. 2000pts ITC game.


My army was built around three detachments. Dark Eldar battalion, Craftworlds spearhead and Harlequin vanguard. It was the first time I used Harlequins, and I like them very much :)


Deployment zone was a bit crowded, but thansk to high mobility of my army my plan was to push all my forces forward very fast.


My three Falcons were stuffed with Dark Reapers to bring them a bit forward up the board.


Actually while building my army I took as many new units as possible. Therefore I fielded new Windriders and Shining Spears. I also gave Autarch on foot a try (re-rolling ones is quite usefull).


Of course I wouldn't be myself if I didn't add at least one plane.


As I'd mentioned earlier I pushed most of my army forward, leaving two Archons holding objectives behind. On my first turn I fired three Falcons and Crimson Hunter Exarch into Vortex Beast, killing it and securing first blood for the Eldar.


I tried to destroy Vindicator as well, but managed to score only single wound.


The hole in Thousand Sons' deployment after the Beast was slain.


Chaos sorcerers unleashed full might of their psychic power, delivering five wounds to my plane and five to one of the Falcons.


In return Falcons obliterated Vindicator.


Gap between both armies got really thin.


Tzangors charged Venom holding one of the objectives, but managed to score only five wounds.


I fired most of my shots into Tzangors, killing the whole unit. Crimson Hunter Exarch shot Arhiman to death.


Windriders fired at Daemon Prince, Shining Speard did the same, leaving it on single wound. Then, Exarch killed Daemon with his lance, and two Spears killed four of Rubric Marines, leaving only the Sorcerer. At the same time Harlequins killed another unit of Marines.


Second Prince killed the Troupe, my brave clowns were no match for his mighty claws.


All in all I won 20:3. I must confess, all my Harlequin units were proxied (two Jesters, Shadowseer, Solitaire and Troupe) but just after the game I bought all those units (except Solitaire, I ordered him some time ago. Sadly GW does not work at the moment, so I have to wait :( ).

When I got home I went back to my paint station, and resumed painting the Ravager.




niedziela, 29 marca 2020

Archons

Recently I painted Craftworlds Eldar mostly, so it's time for me to get some Dark Eldar done. Here are two of my Archons.


I must admit I built them mainly to be able to field the cheapest Battalion available to Eldar, that is two Archons and three units of Kabalites.

After few games I'd changed my mind. For 61 poits Archons are very, very good. Twice they changed the course of game (although it was blind luck on my side), one survived full round of shooting and charge from Agressors, and second killed Smash Captain like he was regular guardsman.

Of course most of the time they don't do so many epic things, but having such guy behind my lines gives me some edge when enemy tries to block my shooting units with charges. Reroll of 1's for my Drukhari is also very nice to have.

After some thoughts I came up with an idea of total-soup army, built around three detachments, one Drukhari, one Craftworlds and one Harlequins. Probably not so straight forward like my Craftworlds list, but with proper handling it will do it's job. More about that later. Cheers.

wtorek, 24 marca 2020

Asurmen

First model for Eldar army I used green stuff on. I must admit, my skills got a bit rusty. Anyway, here he is. Mighty Asurmen:


Sadly, Phoenix Lords aren't very popular in this edition (were they ever?). Looking at their profiles and point costs it's easy to understand why. Despite my 20+ years of experience with this game I were unable to make them usefull. All but Asurmen.

His main and most important skill is to give my Aspect Warriors 5++ save (4++ for Dire Avengers). Thanks to that all my Aspect units (and I use quite a lot of them) are a bit safer, expecially if I boost that save with Protect.

Other very important use for Asurmen is as a beatstick. He has 5 attacks with S5, AP-3 dealing D3 wounds. Each wound roll of 6+ makes the target suffer additional D3 mortal wounds. That's some serious damage in CC, expecially in Eldar standards. Of course I will not charge him through the board, but if anyone tries to kill my Reapers in CC, he has to deal with Asurmen as well. And that ain't that easy...

Big Reapers

I'm getting crazy here, cause of the virus. I have to stay home most of the time, all the stores, restaurants, cinemas etc are closed... I spend a lot of time painting, so I can show you today my second unit of Dark Reapers:


8 Reapers plus Exarch with Aeldari Missile Launcher. I plan to use this unit with Asurmen to give them a bit more survivability (I might even put Protect on them, getting 2+/4++). Quite a lot of firepower, but the unit is very expensive. I hope it will be worth it's points :).

Apart from reapers, I just finished two of my Shining Spears:


I want to build more, but ran out of Bright Lances. Hopefully I'll get some soon, but this madness dute to virus may slow this down a bit.

Next in line are 6 Windriders, 3 Falcons and Asurmen. After that I'll have to build and paint two units of Dire Avengers (which I already bought) and my 2000pts army will be fully painted.

As you can see, I've ran out of flowers for my Dark Reapers bases. Sadly, those are difficult to get, so the rest of the infantry will have to wait some time to get their bases finished.

poniedziałek, 23 marca 2020

Aspect Warriors

One of two reasons I began playing Eldar (second is how cool their tanks look). Fluff-wise all aspect warriors are so freakin' cool I could play using only them if that were possible. Well... It is possible. Is it worth it? Let's find out.


That messy picture above is my workstation with models I'm currently working on. As you can see, there are only aspect warriors, nothing else. Of course in my army there are some other units, but aspects form at least half of the list.

Let's begin with troops. In this section we have only one aspect unit. Dire Avengers are IMO the best troop choice in Craftworlds army. Not very expensive, with a bit better range than Guardians, better overwarch and some cool options for Exarch (Bladestorm!). If you are seriously thinking about Eldar army, get at least one box of them. I just bought my fourth set, but I think I'll get another three, to fill my second battalion, if I ever need to field two battalions.

Then we have elites. Generally speaking Eldar elites are everything but elites. If that section of codex disappeared most competitive players wouldn't even notice.

Fire Dragons look nice on paper, but when you try to field them you'll see that they are very expensive, die easily and have a weapon that has short range and only one shot per model. Of course, S8, AP-4 and D6 damage looks fine, but in Eldar army there are loads of units that can deliver this kind of punishment without dying from few bolter shots.

Howling Banshees do one thing well, and that's shutting down overwatch. Enemy cannot fire overwatch  against them, and after they are in combat, rest of your units can charge without fear of, say, heavy flamers. For 55pts per unit I think one squad may be good, if you are planning on using many close combat warriors, which I don't recommend. All in all, you can buy and use them (expecially after new sculpts became available) but Banshees aren't first, second or even third pick while building an army.

Striking Scorpions are highly underrated aspect warriors. As a matter of fact I'm planning to get a unit or two. First cool thing is their Exarch, who is quite a killer with his claw. They also can deliver some mortal wounds, and appear via deep strike, which  makes them excelent objective grabbers. Not first, but maybe second choice IMO, but if you asked somebody else, they'd probably say "don't use Scorpions!".

Fast attack section has three aspect units. The worst of them are Warp Spiders. Problem with them is that they are quite easy to killand their weapons are less effective than weapons of other unit for the same points.

Swooping Hawks are much bettrer. Fast, with ability to deep strike and then go back to reserves, way to deliver mortal wounds and gazzilion of shots. Of course those shots aren't very powerfull, but sheer number of dice should do something, expecially if you are targeting GEQ's or something like that.

Last but not least, Shining Spears. They have only one flaw. Official models are ugly. Good thing is, it's quite easy to convert Windriders into Shining Spears. Those aspect warriors are very fast and hard hitting unit. If you doom + jinx their target, chances of survival for that enemy are quite thin. Get at least one unit of 8 + Exarch (of course give that Exarch Star Lance). I even think about building second and third unit, giving me an option to field three maxed units. Probably I won't do it, as I prefer Eldar being highly mobile and shooty, but army based on three huge units of spears would do some serious damage.

In heavy support there is only one aspect unit, but what an unit that is! Dark Reapers are very powerfull long ranged warriors, with very important rule that make them shoot on 3+ no matter what. Exarch may take Aeldari Missile Launcher or Tempest Launcher. The later is very nice, as it allows Exarch to fire indirectly. Get yourself 3 boxes, and build two three-model squads and one nine-model, that's IMO the best way. Reapers and Shining Spears are the best aspect units, for now at least.

The last (but not least) aspect warrior is quite a big one. Crimson Hunter is quite a nice plane, which can be used... If you need 6 planes in your list. If not, use up to three Crimson Hunter Exarchs. Their cost is simmilar, but the things CHE can do are way more destructive to your oponent. Currently he can get either 5++ save (Evade) or ignore move penalty while shooting (Hawkeye). Both are very good, I usually use Hawkeye, but Evade is also good.

Well, that's it. All Aspect Warriors (from codex, no FW entries, as those are unreliable as hell.

Let me go back to painting, I'll post some pictures soon :)

sobota, 21 marca 2020

Dire Avengers

First Eldar unit I purchased for my current army. For some time I neglected them, as I'm not a huge fan of troop choices, but after incorporating Asurmen into my army I had to field some to capitalise on that 4+ inv. It also allowed me to fill a Battalion. Three units of 5 + Exarch with two catapults, onboard Falcon if necessary.


As you can see this unit lacks two models. One Dire Avenger and second Exarch (armed with catapults). Those are currently being based, so will join their friends quite soon. One unit done, two more to go :). But now it's time to paint some bikes, then maybe tanks? Who knows :).

wtorek, 17 marca 2020

Fire Prism

I just finished my first (and only, for the forseeble future) Fire Prism.


Thing is, Prisms work well only if you have three of them. I might of course buy two more, but I prefer Reapers and Falcons in current meta. That may change of course :). Actually I regret building the tank as Prism, Night Spinner would be much more usefull right now. Well, my bad.


Good thing is, the model looks AWESOME. Eldar tanks look cool, and this one is the best looking of them all. Even if I don't use it, I'm glad to have it.


Next in line is my big unit of reapers. Eight plus Exarch, that's some serious firepower.

Of course, I also need to finish my Asurmen, but that's quite a lot of work to be done.

After the Pandemia gets under control we'll have a small league in our local store. 500pts, so I'll use single detachment. I though about Drukhari, but then my idea of Asurmen came to my mint.

I'll use Patrol Detachment, with 9 Reapers, Asurmen and 6 Dire Avengers. Probably not the best list I could come up with, but I really like it. Besides, most of players will be newbies, so I don't want to pound them with Falcons, Farseers and Shinigh Spears. I prefer to give them some fun out of the game :).

niedziela, 15 marca 2020

Asurmen - Early WiP

Yesterday I came up with an idea of using huge unit of Dark Reapers (8 + Exarch) with Asurmen next to them, and Warlock to cast Protect.

Thanks to that I get very powerfull shooting, and unit with 2+/4++. Not sure if that will work, but it's worth a try.

Problem was, I don't like the oryginal Asurmen model. It's very old, two-dimentional sculpt. After some interesting chat on Eldar facebook group I began kitbashing my own Phoenix Lord.


It's Dire Avenger body, Exarch arms (one with additional Catapult attached) and Warlock head with Dire Avenger's knot.



My idea was to sculpt the top of the knot and probably some kind of a cape out of greenstuff. I didn't use it for very long time, so it may require some more work :)

sobota, 7 marca 2020

Warlock Skyrunner and preparations for huge tournament

Preperations for Polish Team Championship are ongoing. Today I'd finished the second psyker for my army - Warlock Skyrunner.


My idea for the army is a bit unusuall, as I won't field any Battalions. I will have less CP, but I gain much more - my army is built only of usefull units (infantry ain't usefull to me - prove me wrong if you'd like :) ).

The list is built on two outrider detachments (Harlequins and Craftworlds). I have Troupe Master (tax I have to pay, but I think he will be usefull in some missions), three units of two Skyweavers, Autarch Skyrunner with Saim-Hann lance, 9 Shining Spears and two units of Windriders (9 and 3) armed with Scatter Lasers. Lasers are very good in Saim-Hann detachment as they fire on 3+ no matter if they moved or not.

Third detachment is Craftworlds Spearhead, with Farseer, Warlock, Dark Reapers, Fire Prism (yes, I overcame my disgust towards mail order and got one), three Falcons and Wave Serpent.

5 Tanks, loads of bikes, what can possibly go wrong? :D

BTW, yesterday I got some second-hand Falcons for cheap:


Lots of models to build and paint, wish me luck...

czwartek, 5 marca 2020

Don't fear the Reaper

After several busy days I finally had some time to paint, and finished my Dark Reapers.


There are only three of them. The reason is: I use them mostly from behind some terrain, allowing my Exarch use his Tempest Launcher (with Rain of Death). Second unit will also be of three, but third will be maxed to 9, probably with Asurmen to give them some more survivability. Next in line - some bikes :)