Thursday, March 4, 2010

Warhammer 40K: building the Eldar army 2



Like I talked about in my first Building the Army post, I mentioned that this time around in part 2 I would talk about my exact point totals. There are some things I can add or subtract to go higher than 900 points in the army that I started with, but since I have not played in so long I am not sure what will or what won’t work.

I use Army Builder 3.0 to build my lists, I like the program but hate their licensing. I understand why they do it, but you thought some DRM stuff was bad these people make it really hard to push their product. TWO installs only and the license expires after a year and you have to get a new one for like 25 bucks. Uh huh. Either way I need something like this because I am so bad at remembering army rules and point limits and what not. Plus the printouts are great and can even be exported to HTML and put on the web. So part of me hates using the software but the other part of me loves it.

Basically my list comes out to this:

Every army in Warhammer 40K follows the same building principle: you have to have a base choice of one HQ unit, and 2 TROOP units. After that you can mix and max heavy units, elite units and all sorts of things.

My HQ unit is something called an Autarch. He leads my small army at the moment and he will be equipped with Swooping Hawk wings (these allow him to drop straight into combat with a unit of Swooping Hawks) and a Reaper Launcher, which is basically an Eldar missile launcher. Along with this he has mandiblasters built into his helmet for hand to hand combat advantages and some other things. If you really want to get nerdy with creating an army, you can name each unit and really get into the fluff of the game. Army Builder lets you actually do this which is great for geeking it up.  MORE AFTER THE BREAK

My troop choices were Dire Avengers. I was told to stay away from Guardians until I got more play time in, so I went with the Ballistic Skill 4 and Weapon Skill 4 Avengers. I only have 10 Dire Avengers. Since 4 are regular, and I need a “squad leader” or “Exarch” as they are called, I will only have two squads of 5. I split them up in my list and there are my two troop choices. I also gave each squad a Wave Serpent, which is basically an Eldar APC troop carrier. I put Star Engines on the Wave Serpent so that it has the option to move an additional 12 inches instead of shooting, this gets my troops across the board FAST.

I also purchased a small squad of Swooping Hawks, which are Eldar that have flight wings. This allows them to drop onto the table in a turn, attack or drop grenades, and then go back up into the air and thus off the table. My HQ unit will be attached to these guys.

Lastly this week I made a huge order at Chaos Mail Order.com (go go 20% off all GW products) and the speedy crew there had my shipment out and to me within two days. I have added to my army the following:

  • Eldar Grav Tank

  • Squad of Fire Dragons

  • Squad of Striking Scorpions

  • Two War Walkers

  • Wraithlord

  • Farseer and Warlock retinue


[caption id="attachment_1318" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Actual product and curious cat "][/caption]


Rounding off my list are two squads of Eldar rangers. These guys are the nasty snipers that can pre deploy and have concealment and can shoot and pin down enemy units with their nasty rifles. I have two squads of 5 for those guys. Not a bad start for a 1500+ point army. Now to continue assembling.

3 comments:

  1. I cant comment on the Eldar never played them, but I agree on your comments about Army builder. I am the same way I love the system but their licensing stuff is very very annoying!

    I could never remember have the abilities and stats either! Good luck with the Army my friend!!

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  2. I saw your Flickr photos of the models Hicks painted and they look ace :) Makes me think about getting back into it as a hobby actually. It was so relaxing and great to get away from the computer. My problem is that I was never a very good painter (I was OK... but not great) and it took me forever so I used to get bored before I ever finished a full squad :)

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  3. Thanks We Fly Spitfires :) .

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