Eldar D-cannons, the Dead Walk, and Fast Vehicles FTW

I actually had a really fun game of 40k using Eldar this evening! Since getting hold of a bargain bunch of wraithguard a few weeks ago on Ebay i have been fielding a list based around them, and a Wraithseer. This has made me able to largely get around the major drawbacks of playing the prettiest race in the game - S3 and T3.
Eldar look great. Even though the sculpts are generally several years old and the tanks are all identical chassis, they can still look great. But they really suffer, particularly on 4x4 boards from being physically weak.

Bark > Bite

You have to plan on getting into a fist fight on a smaller board. Orks, Marines (all flavours), and 'nids are all very strong on the assault and won't have far to go to get at your skinny space elves. But wraithguard, while not having bags of killing power up close, are at the very least a formidable roadblock with their high toughness. And, when you field a full squad, particularly with a warlock giving Enhance, they have a good chance of just wearing you down. Over a couple of rounds of combat this evening my guard were able to take out Korsarro Khan and go on to hold up a squad of hammernators for another two rounds. This after obliterating that same squad's Land Raider.
I also have a Wraithseer in this list and, although he had been very useful in previous games, tonight he was only so-so. After destroying a Rhino and pinning the tactical marines inside he got such in combat with the hammernators. Taking a wound reduced his initiative to the same as theirs, while his invulnerable save was actually worse. It took then a couple of turns but eventually they were able to dispatch him for the loss of only two marines.
When we set upthe game I was really expecting to get tabled. My opponent had built a White Scars list, using one of the new Stormtalons, a squadron of Typhoons, a biker squad, and the aforementioned hammernators. Playing Capture and Control, with him going first, I figured he would use Outflank to quickly assault me at my 'base' while protecting his with a tactical squad. To combat this, I kept all my force in reserve, thus denying him a turn of shooting if he deployed stuff early. Despite my army coming on in a rather piecemeal fashion, this tactic worked out for me. When my Fire Prisms and Wraithguard cane on, for examples, they were both immediately presented with convenient targets to destroy (a Land Raider) or force to flee (bye bye, bike squadron).
In the end I was able to Forrest Gump my way to a win. I had planned to use a Wave Serpent, carrying Dire Avengers, to go flat-out at his objective, dismount, then assault him, forcing his troops to move off the objective as they piled in making the game a draw as my objective was unheld. But, at the last minute, it occurred to me that the Pathfinders I had had sitting across the table from my objective were troops! And that the Falcon right next to them was a transport! So a quick embarkation and flight across the board later, plus that assault at the other end, and hey presto - a win for the Eldar!
Funnily enough, my opponent had also forgotten Eldar scouts are troops, so he had not seriously tried to destroy them during the game. So my win was probably even more of a shock to him than it was to me. Full credit to him though, he took it like a champ.
A good time then, as they say, was had by all.
Its always nice to get a win, but its even better to have a fun game. We both had good fortune and bad, we both made mistakes as well as having some things go our way. I'm sure we will both learn from those mistakes too.

A Qick Break - Eldar Falcon

I have been struggling with a little bit of SW-fatigue this past week. Although I am still excited about playing them I have frankly gotten a little bit tired of painting more or less the same paint scheme over and over again. I recently started my Wolf Guard army and built nearly a dozen new terminators that needed painting. This on top of two more drop pods and thirty or forty previous SW models I have painted recently. Time for something a little different - my second love: Eldar.

I butchered paint jobs on more than my fair share of Eldar as a boy, time to see if I can do them any better as an adult. I popped into my local GW - pure impulse this as I would normally never pay their prices - and after enduring a moderately soft sell I came out with a Falcon Grav-tank kit. It was a toss up between that and a Wraithlord and I chose the tank simply because I thought it looked cooler as designed, not needing reposing to achieve a dramatic effect.

First tip of the post then - if you're feeling bored with your army, try something different. It could be another 40k race, it could even be fantasy. It could even not be a GW product! Just pick something you think looks cool. There's too much emphasis these days on competition what with all the 'tournaments' going on. Don't worry about whether what you really like the look of is competitive or even whether you'll use it in battle at all. I really don't know how big a place my tank will have in any future Eldar army list. It just looks nice, was fun to build, and presents a new challenge to paint. Bright and artistic, rather than the rather rough and industrial look of SW gear. If it wasn't for the extra cost GW tag onto it I might just as easily have chosen a Skaven Screaming Bell. Totally useless in gaming terms - I don't even have a copy of Fantasy rules - but it still looks fun.

That said, let me share a quick tip about putting together my getawayfromitall model. Maybe its because its an old kit, but I found the included instructions not entirely illuminating when it came to the order of putting together cockpit interiors and the canopy.

First off, let me suggest, if you're planning on spraying your model at all, do it before you glue the pieces together. I say this simply because the canopy is clear and if you spray the model after gluing you're going to need to mask the canopy somehow. Not a technically demanding task, but possibly a little awkward. Spraying first could just save you some time-consuming labour later on.

Secondly, the canopy assembly is not, to my eyes at least, clearly explained in the diagrams at all. When I did a dry-fit of all the pieces for the turret and driver's seats I found I had one piece left over. Its very small, y-shaped in cross-section and appeared in the instructions to go on the back of the cockpit piece itself. The dotted line in the diagram clearly ends at the top of the drivers backrest, indicating the piece goes the other side from the drivers body. This made no sense- it would not do anything back there once all the pieces were glued together. It was only after I had glued everything and tried to insert the canopy I realised my mistake. That little y fits between the drivers head and the back wall of his cockpit. the hook in the the y is where the cross bar of the canopy sits. Grrrr. I had to prise open the parts that had now fairly well set to get the canopy in. Its a mistake I'll only make once and maybe writing this can help you not make the same mistake.

Anyway, the model is pretty much finished now. I've gone with magnetising everything for the sake of future flexibility. The turret is magnetically attached to the body, as is the shuriken launcher on the belly. I magnetised the optional weapon mount too with a bright lance as its first mate and will be putting magnets on the other choices later on as well. I still need to magnetise the passenger bay door - it has a nasty habit of falling open unless its glued shut - and I might build a magnetised base as the GW clear plastic one feels a little flimsy and unstable to use on a battlefield.

So thats my little holiday from Space Wolves. Its always good to take a break when you're feeling tired. Just because you're sick of whatever army you've invested a lot of time in, this doesn't mean you should quit the hobby completely or just abandon whatever you've been doing. Just try something different, something that just catches your eye and looks fun. And don't trust GW instructions!