Testing the list

I was able to get a game in last night and try out my previous 1.5k list I had posted.  I made a few minor changes resulting in the following list:

HQ:
Eldrad - 210 points

Elite:
9 Scorpions + 1 Exarch with claw, wave serpent, stones, shuriken cannon - 297

Troops:
9 Avengers + 1 Exarch with blade storm, dual catapults, wave serpent, stones, brigtlance - 297 points
10 Storm Guardians + 1 Warlock with embolden, spear, 2 fusion guns, wave serpent, stones, EML - 255 points
5 Rangers - 95 points

Heavy:
1 Falcon with holo field, stone, shuirken cannon - 165
3 War Walkers with scatter lasers.

I made a few changes to the list so that I could swap out the Night Spinner for the Falcon.  Even though I am stuck with the Rangers I don't want to treat them as a complete throw away unit.  Therefore the idea is that the Falcon can support them in an anti-infantry capacity and if necessary spirit them away in the face of an assault.  In order to fit it in I down graded the Storm Guardian wave serpent load out to an EML from the brightlance.  That left me with 5 points to spare so I gave the Warlock embolden.  I was originaly planning to run Eldrad with the Scorpions to provide an extra bit of umph in an assault; however, I thought it prudent to stick him with the Guardians so that he could re-role leadership tests.

I played demons again against the following list:

1 Great Unclean one - Noxious touch, breath of chaos, cloud of flies

2 Herald's of Tzeentch - MoS, WaL, BoT

3 Bloodcrusher's

5 Fiends of Slaanesh

5 Fiends of Slaanesh

6 Plaguebearers - Icon

6 Plaguebearers - Icon

5 Bloodletters of Khorne

5 Pink Horrors + Changeling

2 Daemon Princes - Mark of Nurgle, Cloud of Flies, Noxious Touch

My friend had to proxy some models as he is in the process of building his list so the photo's may be a bit confusing.

Turn One:

I had turn one, in hindsight I should have started my army in reserve but I thought if I circled my serpents I could prevent any rear armour shots.  The Rangers set up in the tower on the hill with the Falcon close by for support.  Demons in turn two did not get there preferred wave so right off the hop things were not going well for him.

So to explain the photo the scarab swarms were proxied for fiends of slannesh and the necron destroyers represented blood crushers.  Over behind the tower dropped 5 blood letters going in to assault the rangers.

Turn 2:

First thing I did was fail my outflank role for the warwalkers.  In response to his placement of demons, my first priority was dealing with the fiends of slannesh.  Last thing I wanted was for him to multi -assault my tanks with them.  So they were doomed by eldrad and guide given to the Avengers.  I also doomed the demon prince who appeared right by the far right wave serpent.  In the back (and out of sight the rangers managed to kill one blood letter and the falcon downed a second one.  I figured they would not servive his next turn assault.




















The demons then begin there turn and manage to bring in all but one demon prince and one troop squad of plague bearors.  Note he had two mishaps, I was able to place the first hearold of Tzench on the table in cover in an attempt to avoid rear armour shots.  He also lost a squad of plague bearers on a roll of two.  The blood letters charged my rangers and killed two models, I was able to down one more of his squad.  The Greater demon deep struck right in front of the avengers and was able to put a template down killing three of them.  The pink horrors tried to shoot me up but I was able to make my cover saves.  The blood crushers then asasulted the guardian wave serpent on the far left.  Needing 6's to hit and 5's to glance he manage to shake the tank.  His demon prince also tried to assault the scorpion wave serpent but failed to roll a 6 to hit.

Turn 3:

No warwalkers yet this turn.  His my scorpians charged the pink horrurs and wiped them out, then consolidated to try and get back in the wave serpent next turn.  Not much happened with my other two wave serpents.  At the beginning of my turn I had fortuned the two wave serpents then moved them to the table edge.  The scorpions wave serpent was again assaulted by the demon prince though this time he shot the flamer template on my scorpions.  wiped over half the squad out.  Falcon in the back managed to put a couple of wounds on his hearald on the table edge.In the back the rangers loose another model then break from combat and start running off the table.  He managed to get his remaining models in on the deep strike including the second herold (the trygons are proxied in).

Turn 4:

The warwalkers come on table.  I shuffle my tanks over and get my avengers ready for another bladestorm.    The rangers in the back take a couple of pot shots at the blood letters as they head to the table edge to no effect.  The falcon puts another wound on the hearold close to the table edge.  The walkers (guided by eldrad) unleash on the blood crushers (doomed by eldrad).  They evaporate.  The Avengers blade storm the hearold on the table edge (doomed by eldrad).  It disapears back into the warp.  I did make a big mistake though.  I did not move the scorpion wave serpent as far left as I could.  I was thinking I could put some wounds on the second hearlod.  His respnose saw my scorpion wave serpent get imobalized then blown up after an assault.  The scorpions failed there pinning test and loose a few models, leaving the squad at 4 elves strong.  The remaining hearold managed to kill 2 Avengers and a warwalker

Turn 5:

Things are looking good for me as the game winds down.  Eldrad guides the two remaining warwalkers which take out the second hearold.  The Falcon clears up the remaining two blood letters.  His response was to wipe out my scorpions in assault with the demon prince.  we rolled the dice and proceeded onto turn 6.

Turn 6:

Not much to say, the warwalkers kill 4 out of 5 of the remaining fiends of slaanesh squad with the aid of .  My avenger squad was fortuned and turbocharged away from the corner.  He tried to get into assault range with his nurgle demons but rolled low on his slow and purposefull rolls.  Game ends on turn six.  I scorred 7 kill points to his 2.  All in all a good start to my list.  However, I must take my win with a grain of salt.  From what I gather demons have quite a bit of difficulty with mech Eldar.  Anyway sorry about any typo's as I went along, and I hope you enjoy the battle report.

Moving on

Last weekend the escalation group got together to pit our kill teams against one another.  Unfortunately I was not able to make it and missed out on all the fun.  I did manage to get a game in during the week against the demon kill team though so I’ve been able to maintain a tenuous hold on staying in the group.  At any rate things did not go well for me at all.  I brought my original kill team listed before (5 Rangers, 4 Scorpions and 1 Exarch with biting blade).  Not much to say about the game other than I failed miserably.  Part of the problem was rolling an inordinate amount of one’s throughout the game.  However, another major reason for my loss was the Rangers themselves.  They just could not put any wounds on his models.  I don’t wish to make excuses for my loss and will put on the record the primary reason for loosing was being out played.  My buddy brought a well thought out list and played smart throughout the game.  From memory I believe he had 5 Bloodletters, 8 Horrors and the Changeling.

After the game I was lamenting on another poor performance from my Rangers.  My friend put it to me bluntly that I always moan and complain after a game when reviewing the performance of my Rangers and how I extol the virtues of the Scorpions.  He suggested that I should play Marines as essentially Scorpions are the closest infantry Eldar have that resemble Marines and that I use them continually in my lists.  I got to say deep down another flip flop nearly happened.  However, I do like the Eldar and I absolutely love their model range so I am going to persevere and continue on with them.

So if I’m going to stick with Eldar because of the models then I may as well stick with Alaitoc (because I like the paint scheme and fluff).  So far I have not had much success with Rangers so in order to put a half competent list together I decided to stand on the shoulders of giants.  I started looking over some lists on Eldaronline and settled on a tourney list posted by a forum member named Lazarus.  I think it is a hard list as far as hard lists go with Eldar.  I particularly liked the fact that he included a full squad of scorpions into his list.  I had to make some changes; however, to keep to the ultimate 1500 point limit that I am building towards and I have to include a squad of Rangers as I used one in the kill team match.  The following list is what I have come up with and hopefully it will perform decently on the table top.

HQ:

Eldrad – 210 points

Elite:

9 Scorpions + 1 Exarch with claw in wave serpent with stones and shuriken cannon – 297 points

Troops:

9 Avengers + 1 Exarch with bladestorm, dual-catapults in wave serpent with stones and brightlances – 297 points

10 Storm Guardians and Warlock with 2 fusion guns, 1 singing spear in wave serpent with stones and brightlances – 255 points

5 Rangers – 95 points

Heavy:

3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers – 180 points

1 Night Spinner with holo-field – 150 points

Total Points: 1494 (the remaining 6 points will be spent either on giving the Exarch move through cover or the Warlock embolden)

Not the hardest list that the Eldar can come up with but I think it is faithful to the Alaitoc fluff.  The general idea is to exploit Eldrad as much as possible.  I have my three tank attack that will focus on isolated parts of my opponents army.  If I go first I plan to use Eldrad’s divination to readjust my lines before the game begins to further exploit any tabletop conditions that may appear on a given game.  The Rangers are there for two reasons: 1) a scoring unit that can only effectively be removed with flamers or CC. 2) a diversion to draw elements of my opponants list in their direction and away from my three tank assault (in reality there is a third reason that being I’m stuck with them as they were part of my kill team).  The War Walkers will outflank at the first opportunity and do what they do best.  Points wise then I’m not in a position to field 2 Fire Prisms so I went with one Night Spinner simply for the reason that one Night Spinner is better than one Fire Prism (though two Fire Prism’s are better than two Night Spinners).  Also the Night Spinner fits the Alaitoc fluff better in my opinion as it is essentially a tar pit unit that can pin more reliably than Rangers. 

I’m not going to promise that this is the final list that I will end up with at 1,500 points.  But I do like it: it’s fluffy and includes the models that I like from the Eldar range.  Also I would not classify this as another flip flop; rather, a refinement of my final list.  As it stands I am stuck with my original kill team moving forward.  That means that I must include at the very minimum in my list 5 Rangers, 4 Scorpions and 1 Exarch (his biting blade will be upgraded to a claw at some point).  I am going to try and play test the list out at some point in the near future and can see if the list actually might be able to perform on the table top.

The Great Flip Flop Part II

After giving it some thought, if the goal is to get a painted army together as quickly as possible then I should probably stick with the Eldar.  I think I will have to give up my Alaitoc theme though and stick with a mech style list (as that is currently the easiest way to field a completely painted army for me).  So this could be my escalation list:

Kill Team:


Troops:
10 - Avengers - 120 points (Base coats done on 9 models, just need to base models and paint up 10th model).

Elite:
5 - Fire Dragons - 80 points (Would have to cheat and use 5 old Dragons that I painted up years ago they would also need to be based).

500 Points:


HQ:
1 - Farseer with Doom - 80 points

Troops:
8 Avengers + 1 Exarch (9 total models in squad) with Blade Storm and dual catapults in Wave Serpent with dual Shuriken Cannons - 240 points

Elite:
5 Dragons in Wave Serpent with dual Shuriken Cannons - 180 points

All that I would have to paint would be the Dragon Wave Serpent and do the finishing touches on my farseer and Avenger Wave Serpent.

750 Points

Same as above but for following changes.

HQ:
1 - Farseer with Doom, RoW - 95 points

Troops:
10 - Storm Guardians with Warlock, Enhance, Singing Spear, 2 Fusion Guns, Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannons

The Storm Guardians are nearly done, just need to finish the bases and paint the arms.  I should also paint a new warlock (though I have a half decent painted warlock from years and years ago that I could touch up).  Also would have to finish their Wave Serpent which needs to be highlighted.

1000 (995) Points

HQ:
1 - Farseer with Doom, RoW, Singing Spear - 98 points (rides with the guardians)

Elite:

5 Dragons in Wave Serpent with dual Shuriken Cannons - 180 points

Troops:

10 - Storm Guardians with Warlock, Enhance, Singing Spear, 2 Fusion Guns, Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannons - 235 points

9 Avengers + 1 Exarch (10 total models in squad) with Blade Storm and dual catapults in Wave Serpent with dual Shuriken Cannons - 252 points

Heavy:

2 - Fire Prism's - 230 points

The Fire Prism's have a base coat and need some detailing and highlights added.  I think that because the goal is to have a painted army on the table staying with the Eldar would be my best hope of completing my project.  We will see come next weekend what I end up doing.  At this rate I may end up scrapping both armies and pick up a third...

The Great Flip Flop

Well, things have been extremely busy for me lately with work and life in general.  I've had little to no free time to work on my painting.  The deadline has come and gone with respect to the first 200 points due for January.  I have not made my self imposed quota for painting.  Part of the problem is I've been changing lists so often I end up half painting too many mini's.  At any rate, I've been toying with the idea of going back to the Flesh Tearer's.  We are to have our first kill team game next weekend and I can get this list done in time (more than likely at any rate...).

200 Points:

Troops:
5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Heavy Bolter. - 145 points

Elite:
1 Priest with Melta Bombs - 55 points

Carrying the list forward to 500 points it would look like this:

HQ:
Librarian with Unleash Rage, Shield of Sanguinius - 100 points

Troops:
5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 165 points
5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 180 points

Elite:

1 Priest with Melta Bombs - 55 points

The Librarian would ride with the assault squad without the power weapon

At 750 points the list would look like this:

HQ:

Librarian with Unleash Rage, Shield of Sanguinius - 100 points

Honour Squad with Chapter Banner, 2 Power Weapons, 2 Melta Guns, Razor Back with Heavy Bolter - 250 points

Troops:

5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 165 points

5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 180 points

Elite:

1 Priest with Melta Bombs - 55 points

The Librarian now rides with the Honour Squad.

At 1000 Points the list looks like this:

HQ:

Librarian with Unleash Rage, Shield of Sanguinius - 100 points

Honour Squad with Chapter Banner, 2 Power Weapons, 2 Melta Guns, Razor Back with Assault Cannon - 285 points

Troops:

5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 180 points

5 Man Assualt Squad with Melta Gun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Assault Cannon. - 180 points

Elite:

2 Priest with Melta Bombs - 110 points

Fast:

1 Baal Predator with Heavy Bolters - 145

The final blocks leading up to 1500 points I would either go with the fluff and add a squad of death company in a rhino with a chaplain and a drop podding DC dreadnought.  Or a tactically more sound list and add another razor back assault squad with priest and add a vindicator and another baal pred.  However, at 2k it all fits together. 

All the above models are assembled and mostly primed and based and I think I could get a base coat down on the kill team for next weekend (I have a crazy work week ahead of me so I might be pushing it).  

It looks like once again I have flip flopped... time will only tell.