Thursday 23 December 2010

1750 Eldar list

I'm planning on having a game against Von Muller's IG list in the new year (you can see it on his blog http://vonmuller.blogspot.com/2010/08/aaaaaannnnnnnnd-im-back-in-room.html) so I though I should share the list i'd like to try against it as it's only fair on the chap ;). I'd also like to point out it's supposed to be an all-comers list so i'm aware the runes of warding are useless against his particular guard list. It's also fluffy as there are 3 10 man guardian squads ;)

HQ1: Farseer (Runes of Warding, Fortune, Guide, Spirit Stones) 130 pts
         Warlock Retinue (5 Warlocks, 2 Singing Spears, Embolden, Enhance, Destructor) 161 pts

HQ2: The Avatar of Khaine (Contrary to popular belief, HE is Iron Man not Tony Stark!) 155 pts

Elite1: 5 Fire Dragons 80 pts
          Wave Serpent (TL-Eldar Missile Launcher, Shuriken Cannon) 120 pts

Elite2: 5 Fire Dragons 80 pts
          Wave Serpent (TL-Eldar Missile Launcher, Shurken Cannon) 120 pts

Troops1: 10 Guardian Defenders (Scatter Laser) 95 pts

Troops2: 10 Guardian Defenders (Scatter Laser) 95 pts

Troops3: 10 Storm Guardians (2 Flamers) 96 pts
               Warlock (Destructor) 35 pts
               Wave Serpent  (TL-Eldar Missile Launcher, Shuriken cannon) 120 pts

Heavy Support1: Night Spinner (Shuriken Cannon) 115 pts
                       
Heavy Support2: War Walker Squadron (3 walkers, Shuriken Cannons, Scatter Lasers) 150pts

Heavy Support3: Falcon (EML, Shuriken Cannon, HoloFields, Spirit Stones) 190 pts

Total points 1748

Sunday 5 December 2010

Oooh I say!

I had a rematch against Leo's Nids, which I might write up this week, as i'm in Germany on weds (free beer!). Also i've had a fully assembled Goblin army sat on my shelf in need of some green paint for some time. I feel it's time for a break painting white an orange and have had a delivery of balsa wood which will become goblin artillery (the last thing missing to complete 2000 points). When they're made i'll make a seperate blog for my gobbo boys and get cracking on some goblin speed painting.

WAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 21 November 2010

Battle Report - The pics

Leo's Hive guard (Can you spot the conversion work?)

The Parasite of Mortrex - mind the tail!
Grav tank surge 




The Broodlord flanks the Farseer and his guardian retinue
Deathleaper attempts to down a Fire prism
Payback - only the Broodlord survives the wrath of the Dire Avengers

The Mycetic spore (I think it's a toy Leo found and repainted. It works very well!)
The contents.... a dreaded Carnifex
Showdown - the Prince duels with the Carnifex 



With the home objective secure, the grav tanks surge towards the recon post

The Warriors and tyranid Prime defend their objective to the bitter end


The final result... 1 - 0 to the Eldar

The doomed prince yields.... :(


Battle Report - 1250 Eldar vs Tyranids

My friend Leo just got a new Nid army build up so we had a game to break them.

The mission was Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment.

The world is a blasted imperial mining world caught up in the wake of a hive fleet tendril and is being systematically purged of life. Emerging from a webway gate was a small Eldar task-force on a mission of vital importance...

The Eldar objective was a choke-point which they were required to hold against the Tyranid advance. The Tyranids were occupying an abandoned but functional Imperial recon post which the Farseer required as part of a more complex and larger plan... Can the Eldar hold off the swarm long enough to reach the recon post? Or will the expedition prove a futile waste of precious eldar life to the great devourer?

Eldar taskforce

HQ Prince Anaris (Yriel equivalent)
HQ Farseer with stones of warding, spirit stones, fortune and mind war powers

Troops 1 10 Guardians with an Eldar Missile Launcher
Troops 2 10 Guardians with an Eldar Missile Launcher
Troops 3 10 Storm Guardians with 2 fusion funs and a warlock with destructor
Wave serpent with twin-linked shuriken cannons and shurken cannon upgrade
Troops 4 10 Dire Avengers with an exarch, power weapon + shiimmershield and defend exarch power
Wave serpent with twin-linked shuriken cannons and shuriken cannon upgrade

Heavy support 1 Fire prism
Heavy support 2 Fire prism

Tyranid swarm (this is off the top of my head...)

HQ The Parasite of Mortrex
HQ Tyranid Prime with bonesword, lashwhip and toxin sacs

Elites 2 Hive guard
Elites Deathleaper

Troops 8 Genestealers with a Broodlord and toxin sacs
Troops 10 Hormagaunts
Troops 10 gargoyles
Troops 3 Tyrannid warriors with lashwhips, boneswords a barbed strangler and toxin sacs

Heavy support Carnifex
Mycetic spore

Eldar Deployment:

Guardian squad 1 occupied the ruins near their objective along with the farseer. Guardian squad 2 occupied the high ground on the rocky outcrop ready to use their missile launcher to good effect.

Tyranid deployment:

Tyranid warriors occupy the recon post screened by a lrge rocky outcrop. The gargoyles and the Parasite deploy hidden by the rocks.

Tyranids fail to steal the initiative and so the game begins on Eldar turn.

Eldar turn 1:

2 Fire prisms swoop onto the battlefield to the right of Guardian squad 2 to maximise their fields of fire. As turn 1 was under night fighting rules the fire prisms and the guardians were unable to see their targets.

The farseer casts fortune on his squad of guardians.

Nid turn 1:

2 Hive guard a Tyranid prime and the hormagaunts swarm onto the field. The Hive guard run behind the rocky outcrop, the prime runs to the warrior brood and the gaunts leap over the ruins surrounding the recon post past the warriors.
The parasite and his gargoyle meat shields fly out of cover towards the eldar guardian squad on the rocks, intent on withstanding the firepower to get into the safety of close combat.
The warrior with the barbed strangler moves out of cover and takes aim at the farseer. His strangler scores a direct hit and only killed a single warrior thanks to the fortune of the farseer. The guardians easily pass their pinning test and the game moves to turn 2.

Eldar turn 2:

rolling for reserves, both the storm guardians and the dire avengers with the Prince arrive and form a grav tank line.
Two fire prisms fire seperately on dispersed mode to slaughter several of the gargoyles. The eldar missile launcher destroys the remainder of the brood with hot plasma leaving the parasite facing the combined firepower of the two wave serpents.
Despite scoring several hits and causing 6 wounds, the parasite saves them all! This leaves him dangerously within range of getting to the guardians and reenacting the scene in Alien where John Hurt has the kind of indigestion that not even Gaviscon can solve... :/
The farseer moves outside the ruins to try and get closer to the Parasite for a mind-war and to get out of los of the warrior with the barbed strangler. Sadly the farseer was 1 inch out of mindwar range (curses!).

Nid turn 2:

Rolling for reserves the Broodlord and his genestealers flank onto the board right behind the farseer and his guardian retinue. Deathleaper also appears behind Fire prism 1 in an attempt to destroy the tank via its fleshooks.
The Parasite of Mortrex swoops 14 inch to place himself within charge range, but he falls short of flying onto the rocks where the guardians reside. The prime joins the warrior brood to enhance their shooting and the hive guard move closer to the grav tank while staying behind cover.
The hormagaunts surge forwards, getting closer to the Eldar objective but also within range of the Eldar guns.
Nid shooting falls flat this turn, as the hive guard are out of range to do anything. Deathleaper fails to damage a fire prism with his shooting attacks. The one bonus is that the barbed strangler warrior, boosted by the prime hits the farseer and guardians and manages to wound the farseer (even with fortune!).
If shooting wasn't the Nids strong point, then combat surely was as the Broodlord led his genestealers to charge both a wave serpent and the farseer and his guardian retinue. The Broodlord himself scored several hits on the grav tank but just fell short of glancing each time. His followers did much better against the guardians, rending 3 to death and killing a further 4 with no losses in return.
The guardians and the farseer bottle it and run, outpacing the genestealers who consolidate closer to the wave serpent.
The parasite failed to charge the guardians due to the difficult terrain by rolling a 1, leaving him stood in gun range from a full guardian squad, 2 wave serpents and 2 fire prisms, d'oh!.

Eldar turn 3:

Since the farseer's guardians were below half strength they could not rally and continued to run along with the farseer.
The wave serpent carrying the storm guardians moved close to Deathleaper and they disembarked. The dire avengers and the prince disembarked from their wave serpent to take out the Genestealers sitting on the Eldar objective.
The fire prisms split up and moved to cover either side of the rocky outcrop to get better fields of fire.
Eldar shooting was effective, with the fire prisms combined might blasting apart the hormagaunt brood. The wave serpent and the Storm guardians manage to kill Deathleaper in a hail of shurkens. 7 genestealers died to the shurkens of the avengers and the wave serpent brought the Broodlord down to a single wound.
Finally, the guardians blew the Parasite to pieces with a well aimed krak missile.

Nid turn 3:

The Nids looked depleted, with the threats to the Eldar objective all but destroyed. But they still had a trick up their sleeve, from the skies a mycetic spore dropped carrying its deadly cargo, the carnifex.
The spore fires cluster spines on the Dire Avengers but misses and scatters onto the newly disgorged Carnifex... maybe the spore was a bit twitchy after landing! But it didn't bother the Fex and it's tank-like armour plates.
The hive guard shoot the second fire prism, scoring 2 hits but neither causing any damage. The warrior with the barbed strangler fires on the farseer, scoring a direct hit and killing off the remaining guardians surrounding him.
The carnifex shoots brainleech devourers at the avengers, killing 4 but they stand their ground.
The lone Broodlord charges the Storm guardians, cleaving 3 to the ground but falling to the witchblade of the warlock.

Eldar turn 4:

The Storm guardians embark into their wave serpent and it turbo boosts 24 inches towards the hive guard. The Prince leaves the Dire avengers behind to face the carnifex alone, and the avengers embark onto their wave serpent, moving towards the warrior brood.
The fire prisms move towards the Nid objective and shoot the hive guard brood, killing one and shooting the carnifex, causing a wound.
Guardian squad 2 shoot up the spore, knocking off a wound. The avenger wave serpent gets lucky and knocks the carnifex down to 2 wounds. The prince throws his sword at the carnifex but fails to wound (I shouldn't have said "bet I roll a 1"...).
The only combat of this turn was the prince charging the carnifex.

He causes 4 hits and, needing only 2+ to wound... I was terrified to see the first die as a 1, the second die as a 1.... but thankfully the last two hit home, slaying the fex!

Nid turn 4:

The hive guard moves towards the home objective. The warrior shoots the prince with the bardbed strangler and causes a wound. The spore shoots the prince and causes another wound (damned 1s!). The hive guard tries to shoot down the wave serpent but the 4+ cover save from turbo boosting saves the day.

Eldar turn 5:

Moving into the end-game, the eldar need to contest or capture the Nid objective to secure victory. So the wave serpents boost to contest the objective and the fire prisms move to get firing arcs on the remaining Nids.
The farseer finally rallies and moves towards the Nid objective. Guardian squad 2 moves towards the home objective and the prince joins them in his wounded state.
The guardian missile launcher blasts the spore contesting the home objective apart, assuring an Eldar victory.
The fire prisms shoot the warriors and cause a wound on the tyranid prime.

Nid turn 5:

The hive guard moves onto the tyranid objective and the warriors converge on the nearest wave serpent.
The barbed strangler destroys the twin-linked shurken cannons of the Storm guardian wave serpent and the hive guard destroys the single cannon, leaving the serpent weaponless.
The warriors charge the serpent but fail to cause any damage.

Leo rolls the die to see if the game continues and rolls a 4, bring on turn 6!

Eldar turn 6:

In a last ditch effort to secure the Nid objective, everything that can moves towards it. The storm guardians and avengers disembark ready to rain shurkens on the warrior brood.
The farseer moves into mind-war range and shreds the mind of the remaining hive guard.
A fire prism, the storm guardians and the avengers all pour fire onto the warriors, killing all but 1 warrior and leaving the prime on 1 wound. the second fire prism shot scattered onto the Avengers wave serpent, stunning them and preventing them from shooting.
With no other option for clearing the warriors, the storm guardians bravely charge into combat, managing to take down the warrior but failing to kill the prime thanks to it's decent armour save.
In return the warriors killed 3 guardians causing them to fail and run. Sadly the guardians didn't run far enough and were massacred by the Tyranid prime to a man.

Nid turn 6:

With the game lost, it was up to the Prime to get revenge by slaughtering the Dire avengers in combat. Due to some good rolls thats exactly what he did, killing 4 and suffering no wounds in return. The avengers flee meaning no eldar troops were capable of claiming the Nid objective.

With that the game ended as an Eldar victory 1 objective to 0.

Before the very end, there was one final thing to resolve. The prince had to make an invunerable save or suffer a wound, which just happened to be his last remaining wound thanks to some poor saving throws. I picked my die up and threw it on the table where it duly landed on a 3 to add a bitter note to the eldar victory.. The prince is dead, long live the Prince!

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Saturday 23 October 2010

Paintin' terrain

I've just finished up an hour or two drybrushing my hills and ruins and they are looking quite nice.
I'm not sure what to do with the bastion and skyshield pad though... should I go for:
1. A base metalic look or go for a domineering paint scheme designed to make them stand out (we have a shiny big fort and you don't. ner ner).
or
2. A colour scheme that makes them blend into the surrounding terrain more (surprise! we have a fort and you only noticed when we opened up a can of Imperial grade whoopass on you).

I'm not sure which would be best and i;m open to suggestions. Might have a scan of the FTW articles to see what others have done...

I'll post my efforts tomorrow for your viewing pleasure.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Craftworld name and symbol

I've been having a think recently about what name and runic symbol my craftworld should have.
Since I already have the colour scheme sorted it has to be something that reflects this, something eldary and something I could paint onto models that is unique.

I made this symbol in microsoft powerpoint by combining some simple geometric shapes with the flame and heart motifs seen in other more well known craftworlds. I then consulted the Eldar Dictionary http://thefallenprinces.blogspot.com/2010/08/eldar-dictionary.html to see about a name, combining Kian - the Eldar word for flame and  Lir - the Eldar word for heart.

Kianlir... simples!

Sunday 17 October 2010

Sneek Peek...

As a special gift, i'm just going to put up some photos of a simple Autarch conversion I did with some Dire Avenger pieces to get my own version of Prince Yriel. I'll throw in the Farseer that's further along painting wise too! You lucky people ;)


Terrain

Last week I had a few games against a PhD colleague as a reward for him handing in his thesis.
I'd got a smallish table but big enough for a 1000 pt game but I lacked terrain, so using some ebayed resin pieces, a hot knife and some cheap plastic kits I knocked up plenty of terrain for some good interesting games.

These are the bits I managed to get base coated in time:
 Some large rocky outcrops

 Imperial Bastion and a Skyshield landing pad
 4 Assorted ruins/barricades including one with a field command post (that one's for you Von Muller!)

Thursday 7 October 2010

Makin Terrain...

This week i've been making some terrain to have a game this weekend.
It's gone quite well actually so i'll be sure to put up some pictures once i've had a chance to add some details to them and paint the bits up.

I will say this though, if you need a ready source of polystyrene working in a lab is brilliant! I bought a hot knife and have been spending the evenings carving hills out of thick packing styrofoam, almost too easy.

Gotta go and tidy the mess up off the floor though... the one disadvantage of polystyrene :(

Sunday 3 October 2010

Eldar Grav Tanks (Work In Progress - Basecoat)

I set a challenge last week to have all my tanks and vypers basecoated in the craftworld colours by today. I'm happy to say I hit my target and so without further delay, here is the photographic evidence :)

If it wasn't for the foundation grey i'd never manage to pull off this colour scheme... white is a pain in the arse!

As a bonus i'm going to show you one of the converted turret weapons I made for my wave serpents.
They are designed to go onto a modified forgeworld turret and I'm particularly pleased with the twin-linked brightlances. They remind me of a mini version of the twin pulsars on the larger forgeworld super-heavy grav-tanks.

Tuesday 28 September 2010

An update!

Its been busy here in Manchester with Freshers week and the start of some crazy experiments of mine.
Amongst all the chaos I found time to assemble my grav tanks and magnetise the relavant turrets for easy storage and weapon swapping.

I'm currently working on the basecoats for them all (3 falcon, 2 fire prism, 2 wave serpent, 2 vyper) so my aim is to have them all basecoated in primary colours by Sunday. If i'm successful i'll put up a pic of them at the basecoat stage next to a wave serpent I finished up (minus the turret) to show what the finished articles should look like.

Dr Titch out!

Tuesday 14 September 2010

Eldar Striking Scorpion Exarch

Striking Scoprion Exarch: Sealgairean (The Hunter)


I like the Exarch with the scorpion's claw, he looks like he is scanning around for signs of his prey... Also there is a definite bit of Rasta in those locks man... Naaaasty. I couldn't resist painting him before the rest of his squad...
I decided against painting my aspect warriors in the cannonical way, instead choosing to base them on the craftworld colours of white and orange but with a third dominant colour being that of their aspect. Instead of painting the armour plates orange I switched them to scoropion green and contrasted this with orange weaponry.
Yellow detailing blends the contrast between the orange and green and overall I like the finished product. Not too complex and not just chucking some green on it with a wash or two as the codex would like me to...

I just have to get around to finishing off the base and maybe redo a couple of gemstones (the white spots are too big) and he'll be ready for action.


Here he is...



Eldar Rangers

My first proper entry and the first (and currently only :/) fully painted unit I have done.

Eldar Rangers: Orren's Outcasts

I decided to use darker shading that I aim for on my guardians and aspect warriors as they don't aim to be noticed. The cratworld colours of white and orange were represented, with a deep red for the packs and colourful gems to break up the black/ashen cloaks. I tried to vary the skin tones of the rangers to make them stand apart from one another. The skin tones are darker than a standard eldar too, as I imagined them being out and about more and being acclimatised to being off-craftworld.

Here are the pics

Monday 13 September 2010

Welcome!

I will be using this place to motivate me to get cracking with the painting of my own (as yet nameless) craftworld.
So far i've painted a unit of rangers and a scorpion exarch completely, but i've others in varying stages. I'll get some photos of the rangers up soon as a start then who knows?

I'm painting things to as decent a standard as i'm capable of, but i'll try and get most things up to tabletop standard before spending time on details and some freehand work.

I'm also working on magnetising my vehicles for quick weapon swaps, so the vehicles will take a while longer to get done. Excuses excuses! :p