the swordwind

the swordwind
The rune of Biel-tan stands for the principle of reinincarnation, a fate thought to be reserved for every Eldar before the Fall. The name of the craftworld means "rebirth of ancient days".

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Thorns or no Thorns?


This is my wave serpent, finished (However, I havent glued it yet , if you look closely you can see the blue tack holding it together. this is because I much prefer painting models apart so you can get to the fiddly bits easier). I am very proud of it, particularly the shading and my self designed energy field (blue lighting, then thinner white lightning on top. It took quite a lot of experimentation to settle on this). However this is the big question: should I paint thorns on it like my jetbikes or leave it as it is now and not risk spoiling it? What do you think? I'm leaning towards just leaving it as it is.













Tuesday 9 June 2009

reserves

I have mentioned before how reserves have really helped me out in my battles. Increasingly I am finding that reserving my jetbikes has several advantages. Normally the disadvantages of reserving something is that you don't know when its going to arrive and that its going to be doing nothing for at least a turn, possibly more. However, I use my jetbikes purely as objective grabbers and possibly a little harrasment if I'm lucky. Their purpose is to not die until turn 5 at which point they go and claim an objective (alternitively, in KP missions their purpose is just to not die, and to fill up my second troops slot.). To this end, where better place to protect them than off the table? Sure, they can't hurt anything but they were hardly going to do anything anyway, and best of all my opponent can't hurt them for up to 4 turns! I know some people might play jetbikes in a more aggresive way, but this is how I use them and so far reserving them has worked well.
(NB: I am talking about my anti horde list here which Iam considering using for everything. Any thoughts on this?).

vs. necrons

Mission was seize ground with pitched battle deployment. i was using my anti horde list in a fit of madness, but without eltritch storm. What do you think of this format for a battle report?


His deployment.
Turn 2
(during his turn 1 he just moved up so ive included that in this picture and skipped straight to turn 2) I shot plasma and next turn he self repaired the single wound it caused.
Turn 3
Guided dire avengers shot doomed squad. Everything shot the squad and wiped it out.
Turn 4
Jetbikes turbobosted to behind building, wave serpent shot the secon squad with similar results to previously.
Turn 5
wave serpent turboboosted to contest and jetbikes shot to no effect before claiming another objective during their assault move. Roll a 3 so game continues
Turn 6
necrons rapid fired my wave serpent before the lord assaulting. did no damage thanks to 3+ cover save from turboboosting and only hitting on 6's in assault. Wave serpent turbo boosted back to claim a different objective jetbikes did same as last time. game ended on a 1.


final thoughts
eldar: 2 objectives
necrons: 1 objective

I think a wave serpent with dire avengers and a farseer works really well, and i am even considering completely scrapping my anti marine 500 point list and just using this one. I think that mech is the way to go and 3 reapers really isnt worth it. Any thoughts?

Friday 5 June 2009

Things I've finished

So far, I've got two jetbikes done. i really love these models and i think the thorns really suit them. I've tried to stick to the colour scheme for biel tan as much as from what you can see on the side of the jetbike box. however some of it is my own invention, for instance the blue in the second picture, and also the pipes in the third (red and blue). I'd quite like to get a banner for them, but im not sure if that would spoil them (to go on the back).

I've also done this dark reaper. I am particularly proud of his base. again I've mostly stuck to the colour scheme except for the green band round his arm (represents he's biel-tan), and the gold support (normally black , I just thought it looked better gold).

Overall I think my painting has definitely improved and I am very pleased with all these models.

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Eltritch storm tactics

Just thought i'd share with you some eldar tricks i've thought up for eltritch storm. Eltritch storm I find works only really effectively against horde armies in conjunction with doom. According to the codex it "does not require a line of sight" and doesn't scatter (I know there is some debate about this but i've always seen it as not scattering. Any comments or arguments on this welcome.). So, how about this: put a farseer in a wave serpent with the doom and eltritch storm powers (probably more worth it to put another squad in there too, but im not discussing that now). keep on moving the wave serpent towards the enemy until your within 18". At this point doom some juicy squad that you want to hurt and then in the shooting phase eltritch storm them! you stay nice and safe in your wave serpent and get to hit them exactly where you want as it does not scatter. Sure its not as deadly as, say unloading a bladestorm but you can keep on sniping away at them In this anoying way until the time comes to speed of and grab the objectives. Ihave since used this against an IG player, and it worked as intended. Bat-rep of it coming soon.

I defeated IG!

I have always thought that IG were pretty broken after my necrons got utterly pasted by turn 3 when we were using night fighting! It was with some trepidation then that I watched as a new IG codex was brought out: more men, bigger tanks, valkyries, more powerful weapons. I started to think of couple of tactics for defeating them with my eldar. However, in every scenario I thought up the IG numbers worked against me infallibly. Eventually I gave up , concluding that if I faced IG then I would simply be doomed to failure.
However the other day I went down to the store and actually beat an IG player. He was a bit new to the rules but its still a win!
Mission was annihilation with dawn of war deployment. He had a command squad with feel no pain (medic), two squads of guard , both with snipers and vox casters, and a Valkyrie with missile pods and a lascannon. I was using my anti-horde list. I'm going to attempt a bit off fluff here.


Panting from running into the cover pete noticed Tom the sniper peering worriedly into the distance.
"come on man, this is just a routine patrol before the main invasion force arrives. we're just seeing if there are any natives here"
"yeah, well I've got a bad feeling about this, and my gut doesn't normally let me down."

Captain baltha heard the call come in through the vox net. "yeah this is pete we think we can see somthing In the distance. Its coming closer, it seems to be some sort of skimmer. what are yo-" (sound of shruiken fire and and then just static)

Farseer Sarai sighed in satisfaction before climbing back into the wave serpent. She allowed her mind to recover from the psyhic stain of assisting the dire avengers arond her, who were now busy reloading their catapults from bladestorming as the nimble skimmer transported them closer to the enemy.

"men we have company, prepare for action!" squad Beta ran into a building to take cover whilst captain baltha anxiously scanned the horizon for any sign of his attackers. Suddenly he saw them: dextrous jetbikes sliding between the buildings, always just out of sight.

But captain baltha was too busy concentrating on the jetbikes to notice the main threat coming up the other flank. The wave serpent poked its nose out from behing a building.

Farseer Sarai felt through the walls of her craft seeking the minds of the enemy. She found them. seaching through the infinite, she found their doom.

the eltritch storm exploded suddenly around captain baltha. Raw pyshic energy suddenly crackled through his squad and he watched in horror as two members of his highly trained command fell as if doomed.


"er...captain baltha, sir? Ive just remembered that there is a valkeryie in base-"
"well what the hell is it doing there! get it out here now" emperor protect, we need the help.


The valkeryie swooped onto the field, with lascannon and missiles streaming towards the wave serpent. However, luck was not with the pilots, as the missiles fell just short and the lascannon missed by a whisker.


The wave serpent sped away behind a building so just its missiles were showing. Captain baltha watched as the jetbikes continued to turbo up the flank. The twin linked eldar missiles smashed into the valkeryie and it visibly shook, as its weapon systems went tempoarily offline.


"Incoming!" captain Baltha called and his squad hunkered down into cover, the medic readying his tools. The valkeryie sped away, the pilot still shaken.


The wave serpent moved up and again the eltritch storm smashed into captain baltha. However this time his squad were ready and they took no casualties. The jetbikes and the wave serpent both opened up on the valkeryie, but doing no damage. The jetbikes jumped back behind a building.


The valkerie sped forwards again, and catching a glimpse of the jetbike opened up with its missile pods, killing two. Still suspecting the worst, captain baltha ordered his squad to stay down.


The lone jetbike bravely fought on jumping out of cover to shoot again at the valkeryie, before hiding. the wave serpent charged at captain baltha, but he held his ground. However he felt he was doomed and as the guided dire avengers jumped out of the wave serpent, bladstorming as they did so, this proved prophetic. He actually survived the volley of shruiken, fighting bravely on amongst the body's of his comrades with blood gushing from a woun in his leg. However the assault that followed proved too much for him and he was dragged down if not by numbers then by the skill of farseer sarai with her withcblades. The dire avengers then consolidated back into the wave serpent.
The wave serpent again fired ts missiles at the advancing valkeryie, and this time the shock knocked the pilots against the inside of their cabin stunning them.

It was at this point that frseer sarai recieved the surrender message. She smiled, and gave her terms: "I demand you leave this maiden world and never return.". Victory for the eldar. They had lost two jetbikes and all the Imperial guard had was a terrified squad in a building and an empty valkeryie with the crew still reeling.

eldar KP: 2
IG KP: 0

Final thoughts
I think that my opponent made a mistake in bringing a valkeryie at such a small point limit and also in not putting anything in it. However I think my tactics worked well and reserving everthing at the beginnig definutely put him of track, and helped keep my men alive. I think I shall try this more in future. I was also fortunate with the forward placement of one of his squads. This allowed me to come on and wipe out a squad first turn without fear of retribution. also I was very glad when he forgot about his valkeryie for a turn ( to tell you the truth so did I!).