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.