Awesome Alaitoc Autarchs...

Awesome title I know (even though the photo does not have an Autarch present lol).  Well, I have 2k of lizards nearly put together and I can't seem to shake my love of the Eldar.  Was reading a great battle report over at the Spirit Chamber and my creative juices started flowing.  This list I have in mind to try out is in no way min/maxed in efficiency but I think it would be fun to play.  I'm thinking of playing the list in three stages (1k, 1.5k and 2k).  As it stands I have the majority of the models and they are well on the way to being painted.  I'm thinking that I may try and finish painting my Eldar and get some games in with the lizzies unpainted.  With out much ado here are my lists:

1k

HQ:
(2) Autarchs - Fusion Guns

Troops:
(2) 5 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones

Elite:
5 Fire Dragons - Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones

Heavy:
(2) Fire Prism's
2 War Walkers with shuriken cannons

So the list is light on models and really is a one trick pony.  The general plan is to start in reserve and opt to go second thereby robing my opponent of two turns of shooting.  Bottom of turn two there is a strong chance my army comes on the table with +2 to reserve with the warwalkers outflanking.  The walkers role is to hunt for rear/side armour and distract firepower away from my tanks for a turn.  I plan to position my wave serpents for a turn three rush.  The fire prism's will fire a linked shot (strength 10 ap 1 twinlinked) to try and take out another tank.

Turn three the walkers are likely dead but I now have three fusion gun units in position to take out three other tanks.  The dragons and two autarchs are now suicide units hopefully in a position to strike.  The fire prisms will switch to anti-infintry and the dragon wave serpent will be positioned to provide cover saves to the other tanks.  Turn four on move tanks about and play Eldar tricks until the game is over.

The list is uber light on infantry and any one bad dice roll could ruin my game, but I think this would be a fun list to play.

Bringing the army to up to 1.5k the following is my list.


HQ:
(2) Autarchs - Fusion Guns, Chain Swords, Mandi-Blasters

Troops:
(2) 5 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones
10 Storm Guardians - 2 Fusion Guns, Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones

Elite:
6 Fire Dragons - Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones
10 Scorpions - Exarch, Outflank, Move Through Cover, Power Claw

Heavy:
(2) Fire Prism's
3 War Walkers with shuriken cannons

The general game plan stays the same only now I have a dedicated assault unit, another scoring unit with fusion guns and slightly beefier Autarchs, Dragons and Warwalkers.  Again everything starts in reserve with the scorpions and warwalkers outflanking.  Turn two pounce.  Hopefully the scorpions will add to the distraction away from my tanks.

Finally at 2k


HQ:
(2) Autarchs - Fusion Guns, Chain Swords, Mandi-Blasters

Troops:
(2) 9 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones
10 Storm Guardians - 2 Fusion Guns, Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones
10 Rangers

Elite:
5 Fire Dragons - Exarch, Heavy Flamer, Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannons, Stones
10 Scorpions - Exarch, Outflank, Move Through Cover, Power Claw
10 Scorpions - Exarch, Outflank, Move Through Cover, Biting Blade

Heavy:
(2) Fire Prism's
3 War Walkers with shuriken cannons


So the final list sees the Avenger's having their squad size upped.  Also a full unit of rangers along with another squad of scorpions.  Game plan is essentially the same.  I plan on outflanking the rangers (point denial more than anything else and set up to shoot for turn three).

Over all I think the list is thematic and could catch a few people off guard.  It's not the typical Eldar list normally played.  One thing I like about the list is the kit out on the Autarchs.  The gear selected is represented by the aspects present in the list.  Anyway, it may all just be a pipe dream if my fickle attention span switches to something else.  Any thoughts or ideas?

Lizardmen

Sorry about the photo, just took a quick snap with my phone.  Anyway, after spending some time reading the 6th edition rumors for 40k I got fired up about running my Eldar.  Then reality set in and I realized a new codex is likely a year away.  Whether the rumors are true or not, I think it is agreed that 6th edition is likely going to change the game dramatically as Fantasy did from 7th to 8th.  Because of the change 6th will bring, I've decided to switch tracks and give Fantasy a try.

I've had my lizardmen sitting in boxes for the last couple of years and decided to give them a go.  The photo above shows my nearly assembled 1500 point list.  Going to bring it up to 2k then start playing some games.  To be honest fantasy is a bit daunting, new lists/armies/tactics to figure out.  The more I read the more impressed I am with the level of thought required to build a balanced list.  Though I should state that I'm not out to build a hard list or planning to attend tournaments.  Visual aesthetics are my primary goal with this project.  Back on track, it seems that the army you build should be reflective of whatever lore of magic you choice.  With respect to the Lizardmen, two lore's stand out: Life and Light (though I've read some lists that are tweaked for death and shadow).  The lore of life seems to be especially tailored to the lizardmen.  Spells, that heal multi-wound models, increase toughness, and a solid damage spell with dwellers makes Life a go to lore of magic for a defensive styled lizardmen list.  On the other end we have Light.  Light also provides great synergy with a Lizardmen army providing powerful buffs to the already solid saurus warriors.  Buffs include increasing movement, WS and initiative (all stats that the Lizardmen generally lack).  Light also provides nice offensive spells that make up for the Lizardmen's lack of long range shooting.

All things being equal I've decided to run with the lore of life to learn the Fantasy ropes.  Defensive in nature speaks to my play-style in general.  Plus it allows the Lizardmen to bring more monsters to the table (which can be cannon bait in the 8th edition rule set).  A big part of my thought process involved ways to include the stegadon (or two) model in my army.  Also, I figure lore of life allows for a more varied army. From what I can gather, lore of Light lists are at their strongest when there are gobs of saurus warriors on the table.  One big plus on the life side is that temple guard tend to do very well in life lists.  One thing for sure is that if I'm going to be playing lizardmen I want a Slann bunkered in a temple guard unit.  The lore of life encourages this.

So with my lore selected, and the knowledge of some key units I wanted to include, the following two lists are what I'm planning to try at 1500 points before I build up to 2k and beyond.

Lord:
Slann - General, Lore of Life, Focus of Mystery (know all spells in a lore), Cube of Darkness

Heroes:
Skink Priest - Dispel Scroll

Core:
24 Saurus Warriors - full command
(2) 10 Skink Skirmishers

Special:
20 Temple Guard - Musician, Magic Banner (Banner of Eternal Flame)
1 Stegadon

Rare:
1 Salamander

While the Slann does not have all the perks normally selected, this list is still designed to dominate the magic phase.  No cupped hands as the lore of life has thrown of vines.  At this point level the level 4 slann should be able to outplay opposing mages.  The skink is there to carry a dispel scroll and provide a debuff spell on any important assaults going on.  One big glaring omission is the lack of a BsB on the Slann.  At these low point levels though I figure I will just have to rely on cold blooded for my leadership rolls.  I went with the skink over the scar-vet in this list to provide extra insurance against the dreaded death magic spell purple something or other (fail an initiative test and die - lizards generally have 1 for initiative).

The other list I've been thinking about is as follows:


Lord:
Slann - General, Lore of Life, Focus of Mystery (know all spells in a lore), Dispel Scroll

Heroes:
Scar-Vet - Great Weapon, Light Armour, Dragon Helm, Venom of the Firefly

Core:
20 Saurus Warriors - Musician, Banner, Spears
(2) 10 Skink Skirmishers

Special:
20 Temple Guard - Musician, Magic Banner (Banner of Eternal Flame)
1 Stegadon

Rare:
1 Salamander


With this list, I don't quite have the magic dominance as the first list but I gain a hard hitting hero model.  The Scar-Vet is a great little HtH beast for the points spent.  Great Weapon strikes at strength 7 and the Venom makes his attacks magical.  The spears on the saurus may not be the best choice (but I have twenty models already with the spears in place).  You loose the 6+ ward save of sword and shield but you get to make an attack with an extra rank on a turn you did not charge.

I'm not sure on how to bring my list up to 2k.  I think I should include some chameleon skinks and another unit of saurus or ancient stegadon.  I'm leaning towards the ancient stegadon simple because I like the model.  Anyway, the 1500 point list is nearly built and I hope to get some games in.  I've got to say I'm excited to try Fantasy out.  It's an entirely different game imbued with a ton of tactics.

On the hobby side of the new army, I'm planning to keep the painting minimal and simple.  As it stands I've three colours that I wish to use to tie the army together.  Green, Purple and Grey.  Any given unit will only have two of the three colours (plus extra detail colours for eyes, teeth and weapons).  My painting strategy is simple.  Prime white, then paint the scales with a foundation colour then drybrush the scales with an extreme highlight.  Once dried, wash the whole model with the respective wash colour two times.  The models second colour then will be used for the shileds.  As it stands, the saurus I want to paint green with grey shields.  The skinks will be purple with green shields.  The temple guard I will take some extra time with and paint the bodies grey and either green or purple scales and the third colour applied to the shield.  As for the monsters, I'm thinking the basic stegadon will be painted like my saurus and the salamander painted to look like my skinks (though I may add extreme contrast with yellows and oranges).

Great thing about the lizardmen models is that they are very textured and therefore conducive to drybrushing.  My overall painting strategy is premised on the idea that while individually the models may not be that outstanding, seen as units and ultimately as an army the army will look good.  All using simple techniques.  No multi-layering shades of a colour, I'm taking the quick path to painting this army.

So that's all for now, I'll post some photo's (taken with a proper camera) as I progress along with my new project.  Have a good one.

First thoughts on the 6th Edition Rumors

I've read through the supposed leaked 6th edition rule book and like what I've read.  Just to get this out of the way, I'm assuming that the new rules are legit (or a rough version of whats coming down the pipe).  The game hopefully will be more complex with the advent of a new rule system.  As always, when I read the rules I had changes to the Eldar foremost in mind.  I'm thinking that even without a new codex, these rule changes will breath new life into the Eldar.  The following are positive changes I think will happen to the pre-existing Eldar codex in the brave new world of 6th edition.

Eldar tanks get a boost:

-Movement is 8"/16"/24" with star engines adding another 12" movement on flat out moves.
-Eldar tanks can fire 4 weapons at combat speed and 2 at cruising
-While they did not get harder to hit with the new EV rules they did not get easier to hit as most other tanks have.
-There is now an advantage to having no fire points in a vehicle (crew immune to template attacks on the vehicle).
-Vectored Engines now ignore the first immobilized result.
-Tank status confers a -1 penalty on the damage chart.
-Disembarking units can engage (assault) from a tank after it has moved at combat speed (effectively adding 2" to an assault range.  ie: banshees normally have an assault range of 16"; however it would now be 18" when engaging from a tank.
-Falcon's in particular got a boost with holo-fields and vectored engines (not sure is stones are worth it anymore).  They can now move 16" and fire two guns.  Also, with the EV rules, when equipped with anti-tank/transport weapons the Falcon is hitting on 2's and 3's.  Dragons can disembark and move up to 10" from the hatch then fire a melta salvo.
-Fireprism's are far more accurate with the changes to blast weapons combined with their BS 4.
-Upgrading to an under-slung shuriken cannon is still beneficial when moving at cruising speed.

Vipers:

- EV rating of 4 if moved in turn before.  More accurate against tanks with their reduced EV ratings

Banshees:

-16" charge range and 5++ save in close combat.
-can use the shuriken pistol strength (though limited to one attack per model) in HtH.

Fire Dragons:

-Can engage a tank with melta-bombs and then fire their assault guns at a separate target in the subsequent shooting phase.
-Tank Hunter appears to be the only way to obtain a +1 on the vehicle damage chart making the exarch worth taking

Rangers/pathfinders:

-Can choose what model in a unit suffers a wound subject to armour groups.
-Sniper rifles wound on a 2+
-Can give scout status to a Falcon if embarked in one.

Warp-Spiders:

-AP - weapons no longer provide a -2 modifier to armour damage table
-Hit and Run completely changed with the reversal of assaults and shooting phases of the game.

Swooping Hawks:

-Appear to be a strong choice to counter flyers.  Hit on a 4+ (dispite EV rating of 6).
-Have flying status so can engage flyers in HtH with haywire grenades.
-Blast template now categorized as a bomb attack made in the movement phase.
-Do not scatter if deep struck outside of enemy 18" bubble.
-Can safely end move in difficult terrain without taking dangerous tests.

Shinning Spears:

-Hit and Run now works differently.
-Appears to have taken a hit with the reduced toughness in HtH

Vibro-Cannon:

-Now classified as a rail type weapon

Exarch's:

-Can direct attacks

Autarchs:

-Reserve game got a lot more interesting with strike forces.

Farseer:

-Wounds suffered from mind war do not allow cover saves.

So these are some ideas of positive changes off the top of my head.  Time will tell (though it is drawing short) for the proposed changes to take effect (if they ever do).  At any rate I think I'm going to try and get some low point games in with these new rules.  A big change to the game that I have not seen discussed yet is the inability of troops to score if embarked in a vehicle.  I believe this little gem by itself will serve to dramatically change up the game/meta/msu spam.  So let me know what yall think of the proposed new rule set.