I walk again, a god among mere mortals
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Sunday 25 August 2013

Eldar - Fun and Efficient



Sergeant Kanis heard it before he seen it, the high-pitched whine from the thrusters of a Grav Tank pierced the air from over a kilometer away. From his elevated hidden position in the heavy foliage, he used his telescopic sight off the sniper rifle to zoom in on the coming threat. The vehicle was designated Wave Serpent class and was regarded to be extremely dangerous and should not be engaged without armored support according to Imperial Guard spec op procedures.

He continued to view the approaching threat through his telescopic sight as he watched the Eldar tank come to a standstill followed by the rear access door hissing open. A squadron of dark blue armoured Eldar Aspect Warriors disembarked from the vehicle and proceeded to take on a sweeping search pattern heading towards his hidden sniper team’s position.

With drilled military efficiency, Sergeant Kanis indicated with precise hand signals to his team to withdraw to a fallback position. Quietly his 3 man team put their equipment on their backs and withdrew crawling backwards on all fours from their lookout. Without warning, the top of private Sipton’s head sliced open as if by a surgeon’s blade exposing brain matter and bone. The man was lying on his front with his head resting on its side in a pool of gore looking straight at Sergeant Kanis with lifeless eyes. Taken by surprise and no time to wonder how that Eldar squad could have detected them, Sergeant Kanis’s curiosity was soon satisfied.

As if out of thin air five stealthily Eldar Aspect Warriors came into view, weapons drawn and chainsword in hand. Striking Scorpions…

Hi guys and welcome to The Witchblade,

The guys here on The Witchblade love Eldar and hopefully you do too, but with the new Codex not long out we are still only discovering and unlocking new ways to play them. There are quite a few different builds floating around at the moment be it the Monster Build or the Serpent Spam. So in this article I would like to talk about the first of the many different builds for Eldar and how they could be fun.

I will start with the style of list I have been playing for the last couple of years, which is the Saim Hann themed Jetbike and Skimmer list. My normal list would consist of a Seer Council (Farseer & 5 Warlocks) on Jetbikes, 2 Fire Prisms, a Wave Serpent with 5 Fire Dragons, 6 Vyper Jetbikes with double Shuriken Cannons and 4 squads of 6 Guardian Jetbikes with two Shuriken Cannons in each squad. I would also take a Nightwing Interceptor and sometimes an Autarch on a Jetbike.

In 5th edition this was a decent army, in the few tournaments I played in back then it usually finished mid-table in the final standings. It was fast and fairly durable with mostly 3+sv’s all round but when 6th edition hit this army took a huge boost. Now we had 5+ Jink cover saves for our tanks and Vypers and also our Jetbikes once they moved, increasing the overall army’s durability significantly.

I played this for about a year and yes it was a welcome boost but it didn’t change the army performance by a huge amount. But once the new Eldar Codex came out this army was rocketed to a whole new level. Now all the Jetbikes are BS4 twin linked and the BS 4 on the Vyper’s was a massive boost to firepower. The Wave Serpent became an absolute beast of a transport and Shuriken weapons all of kinds suddenly could kill terminators and monstrous creatures with ease (Im looking at you Belial! I hate Belial! Did I mention I hate Belial?).

So with these new rules this army has been taken to new heights. I designed the army to be a fluffy themed army and not an overly competitive army. More of an all comers army but I have been surprised how well it has held up over the years to the power builds of the 40k scene. It’s not going to win tournaments but it’s an extremely fun army to play and allows for fantastic amount of flexibility. It’s always fun to get first turn and turbo boost nearly everything up to your opponent’s deployment zone. Usually ends in disaster but its good fun and the look on your opponents face is usually worth it!

I don’t usually run the Seer Council anymore because at 50points each there are just so many other better options out there than a Jetbike Warlock who will die on a roll of double 1 or double 6 on 2d6. So Crimson Hunters to join the Nightwing are the road I am heading down which kind of fit’s the theme as well. No doubt I will have a couple of battle reports up here soon showing how awesome Saim Hann Eldar are!

Thanks for reading!


Johno

2 comments:

  1. Looking forward to seeing this army in action at NWG Johno.

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  2. The Jetbike list is my next build. I've been playing mech Eldar for years now, but due to the recent boost in Wave Serpent performance, I can't play my list outside of tournaments most of the time and have a fun game because the life drains from my opponent's face about the end of turn 2-3.
    What do you find your list is weakest too? Strongest against? I'm looking to cherry pick your experience to give my list Mk1 a jump start.

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