First 5th Edition Eldar Outing.

Hey all, I know that blog updates have been sporadic. Mostly this was because I was Painting and getting very little in the way of gaming done. Last night however I got to play non Iyanden-wraith eldar for the first time. Lets just say that my mind was blown. I took out the army I had mentioned a bit earlier for a spin and boy, Oh boy was it cool.

My 1650 Eldarish pointy eared space elves.

HQ:
1x Eldrad (Using him as a Iyanden Seer Stand in)

Elites:

6x Firedragons with Exarch and Tank hunters

Troops:

1x 10 Guardians, Spirit seer, Embolden and Scatter Laser

1x 10 Dire Avengers, Shimmershield + Power Weapon, Blade Storm.
Wave Serpent, Shurican cannon and Spirit Stones.

1x 10 Dire Avengers, Shimmershield + Power Weapon, Blade Storm.
Wave Serpent, Shurican cannon and Spirit Stones.

Fast Attack:

5x Warp spider, Exarch, Powerblade, Twin Death Spinners and Withdraw

Heavy Support:

1x Wraithlord, Brightlance and Missile Launcher

1x Wraithlord, Brightlance and Missile Launcher

1x Falcon, Missile Launcher, Spirit Stones and Holo field.

1650 Points

Having never used such a squishy force it was learning curve. I played a sort of nidzilla list (3 Trigons (primes?), 2 flyrants, 2 tervigons and some gaunts). The game started with rolling Dawn of war and Annhilation (sigh). My opponent elected to Reserve all his forces depriving me of a turn of shooting.

Starting from the top here's what performed well:

Runes of Warding - HOLY CRAP these things are awesome. My opponent had 2 Tyrants that could cast a ability that made my troops WS/BS 1 (paroxysm ?). It only got through once during the entire game. Having never needed runes of warding (last time I really played eldar was 4th ed) I was surprised at how useful they are. Definately a must have from now on. With all the Space marine psykers, Blood angels, Space Wolves, Chaos and Nids I think they will be worth double their points.

Runes of Witnessing - Not as "holy crap awesome" as I thought, but the ability to cancel out the effects of Shadow in the warp was very useful. Not runes of warding awesome, but pretty awesome none the less. If I have points I will definately equip my seers with it in the future.

Ghosthelm - Awesome sauce. 'nough said.

Fortune - The ability to cast this on your vehicles to get the rerollable 4+ obscured save is pretty sweet. Combines with Spirit stones it means you can almost always move even though you take horrendous firepower. Excellent on wave serpents.

Guide - Turns your guns into wtf pwn lasers. I found the ability to toss this on Falcon pretty decent. Being able to fire 3 S8 BS3 rerollable weapons isn't half bad. Can kill a monstrous creature in 2 turns of fire. I know normally there are much better targets to guide (Dire avengers etc), but I found the falcon performed far above what I expected (I've heard many cries of how useless they are compared to wave serpents).

Doom - What can I really say here ? Helps prevent those annoying ones from popping up too often.

Powers I have yet to try are Mind war and Eldricht storm. Unfortunately I didn't have any targets to use them on last night. However I didn't know what the LD is on a Trigon or Tervigon - once' Ive read up on this I might try it out and see.

Firedragons - They where rather useful, but due to some stupid disembarking on my part they where not really as useful as they could have been. I know better for future games and look forward to toasting many Monstrous creatures. If I was crafting my list to fight specific enemies I would invest in Crackshot. The ability to ignore cover as well as re-roll wounds would be invaluable.

Guardians - They didn't kill much (Put 2 wounds on a monstrous creature, that's it) - but they did hold out in close combat vs 2 Tervigons for 3 turns. Embolden really helped with their poor leadership and I can't really complain. I took them purely to babysit my wraithlords and I can't really complain about their performance at all. Poor buggers hate deepstriking monstrous bugs (who doesn't ?).

Dire Avengers - If I had been playing a normal list (you know, one with actual infantry) then these guys would have been the units of the match. As it stood the sheer volume of firepower they put out (guide + Doom ftw) managed to push wounds through on the big bugs. Awesome stuff. Using the Shimmershield for the first time proved enlightening. At first I thought a 5+ invulnerable save would be nothing to write home about. HOWEVER with fortune these guys just wouldn't go down, and with Eldrad's help they bludgeoned a Hive tyrant to death. Man that's surprising. Won't leave home without it. I think If I had the point I' would definately take defend as well. Oh well.

Wave serpents - Despite one getting downed by a lucky nid (6's to hit). These guys just ran circles all over the place. 24" move is pure sex on legs (well thrusters). The wide models also aided me nicely in Blocking off routes to my squishy infantry. Great stuff.

Warp Spiders - Despite only getting 1 turn of shooting before getting nom nommed by the nids they did manage to put 3 wounds on the enemy bug. Doom ftw once more. Unfortunately I rolled a measily 5" to get away in the assault phase and they ended up getting eaten. I think If I fail less at maneuvering them next time they will definately do better.

In all it was a fun game. I learnt alot of new rules. Afterwards I also realized we had used runes of warding wrong - every roll of 12 or higher for psychic tests my opponent needed to take POTW attack. Atleast now I know for next time. Well that's my little bit of "wisdom" for today (ha!) and I look forward to how this force is going to evolve.