I am Solitaire!

After more than 15 years the solitaire is back in my army.

Fully painted and ready to slay.

Photographed in natural light:

One Year On - Unit Review: Fast Attack

Oddly there is a rumor of a new Harlequin codex or supplement coming soon, which will hopefully address some of the concerns I mentioned in my post on Elites. I look forward to it, despite my surety the Solitaire will have no rules in the book.

Crimson Hunter

I want this unit to come as a squadron because it would feel right as an aspect. I enjoy this unit.

Game Play - a solid unit, and I use them often. Vector dancer is an amazing rule, but it is a fragile unit.

In 7th: pretty much the same as in 6th, though Jink has improved. One is ok, but two are better. If you roll as poorly as I do you'll also upgrade one to an Exarch, and then probably fail to pen anyway.

Swooping Hawks

This unit received a huge boost in a point reduction and an additional shot per weapon and deep strike without scatter. Also the exarch received the ability to simply purchase a power sword without giving up a good gun.

Game Play - there isn't much not to love about this unit. In a pinch they can finish off a wounded vehicle with a Haywire thrown by an Exarch, and the squad can take down an Imperial knight in a single round of combat. What their guns lack in strength they make up in volume.

Phoenix Lord - I have not used Baharroth, but I like his rules (the addition of the invul is notable) and he makes the unit even faster, capable of repositioning very quickly. blinding units on the deep strike allows them to affect multiple units in a single turn, as can clever positioning compared to where the grenade pack drops.

In 7th:  Scoring is an improvement on a solid unit.

Warp Spiders

This unit was awful in 3rd edition, and has seen steady improvement ever since. It is now, in my opinion, the best unit in the game. Fast, solid save, powerful short range shooting that threatens anything shy of AV 14. The only down spot is the models are over 20 years old and static.

Game Play - If wielded like a scalpel they are brutally efficient. They are flexible enough to target heavy or light infantry, monstrous creatures or light to mid armor vehicles. With deep strike or their insane move distance per turn they can get where you need them when you need them.

In 7th:  The ability to score objectives has boosted them from stars to super stars.

Hemlock

Possibly the most maligned unit in the book at its release I enjoyed its less than direct approach to warfare.

Game Play - be aggressive and keep it close to opponents you intend to force break tests on.

In 7th:  now it can cast psychic shriek and cast on the turn it arrives (and shoot swooping monstrous creatures). 7th has made it a nightmare to units like broadsides.

Shining Spears

Shining Spears received a 10ppm price reduction in this book making them a unit I strongly consider, but they retained the AP3 in close combat.  They also received skilled rider and outflank thrown on.

Gameplay - In 4th edition they were a unit I would aim at terminators, but now they're a unit only suited to taking on small units of heavy infantry as they've been reduced to AP 3.  Their actual damage output is very low on the charge because they cannot get a bonus attack, but their shooting is slightly improved with bladestorm.  They need support in the form of an attached Autarch (who now only gives 5 bonus attacks, as opposed to the 6 he could previously give with the scorpion helm.  An exarch is still required (for hit and run and a little oomf), but the overall cost of a unit has thankfully been reduced.  I ran a unit of 5 supported by an autarch, which made them expensive, but deadly.  I haven't run them in 7th, but with the reduced cost I might simply run 5 with no support character and see how it goes.  The ability to run 6 fully tricked out for under 200 pts is an excellent option as well, but they are one of the units that are not for amateur players.  You need to have a plan, and stick with it, and once you've had a good game with them expect they become a priority target for your opponents.

Vyper

Here have some BS4 and bladestorm.  Really that's the only change from the previous book, but if you liked to upgrade your turret weapon the upgrades got cheaper.

Gameplay - This really hasn't changed.  For me I run them in a squadron of 3, each with dual shuriken cannons.  The change to jink does hit their output, but if you focus more on intervening terrain to provide cover rather than jinking you'll get an idea of just how gross their firepower can be.  They hit more and are occasionally AP2, all in a tidy package for 180 pts.  They're flexible enough to take on light to medium vehicles and have a high enough volume of fire (That's 18 BS4 shots at str 6 ap 5 bladestorm) to scare light and heavy infantry alike.  Also, opponents often deprioritize them in favor of other targets, so in the early game you can use them aggressively and force your opponent not to ignore them.

OVERALL

Eldar may have the best Fast Attack section in the game.  Most players will take Warp Spiders in just about every list, and Swooping Hawks finally 

BUILDS

Warp Spiders: 8 with an Exarch with Spinneret rifle and Fast shot.  You can absorb a couple casualties and still be terrifying.

Swooping Hawks: 7 with an Exarch with sunrifle allows you the big blast when you drop, small arms fire that will shock your opponent, and their grenades make them a counter to the ever-present threat that is an imperial knight.

Crimson Hunter: Exarch.  That upgrade is worth it for the bump in BS.  The Marksmen upgrade is solid if you want to surprise your opponent and force some look out sir rolls.

Hemlock: it has no options, but should definitely be run.

Shining Spears: 6 with an Exarch with star lance, hit and run, and monster hunter.

Vypers: 3, each with dual shuriken cannons.

The Stand - an apocalypse scenario

Well, it's been just over a month since I published something, and that's mostly been because of the holidays, but I also spent a few weeks in Hong Kong.  I've been working on editing a battle report from November, an Apocalypse game I played, but it takes a while.  For anyone that's watched one of my reports, I try to do quite a bit of editing.

As a pre-amble to the completion and eventual release of that video I figured I'd share the scenario that we played.  As a caveat, this scenario was built and agreed to by both my opponent and me.  I used a scenario from Valedor as the foundation for this scenario.  In the Valedor scenario the Eldar go First with no chance to seize.  I also crafted fluff to build this game in to the Myrddin Campaign and it had an effect on the army design.

The Stand

Myrddin is in ruins as the Imperium has become embroiled in a war that rages across the whole of the planet.  The destruction wrought by the forces of chaos, and no available assistance from the Ordo Malleus have forced the hand of humanity to reach out to the Tau Empire for reinforcements.  As a powerful Space Marine Librarium in a nearby strike cruiser scours the ephemeral aura of the planet to divine the location of massive warp incursions they direct a combined force of Imperial Guard and tau in a pincer attack towards a powerful pulse of psychic energy.  Little do they know it is not a nest of daemons they approach, but an Eldar warhost, freshly entered from the webway and empowered with the psychic might of nearly the entire Farseer Council of Ulthwe.

Deployment: The allied forces must set up within 18" of either short edges.  The Eldar player must set up within 12" of the (short) center line of the table.  Infiltrate and scout rules are not used in this scenario.  Allied forces entering from reserve enter from either short edges, decided as if they were outflanking.  Eldar forces entering from reserve enter from either long table edges decided as if they were outflanking.  Units that fall back do so towards the nearest appropriate table edge (short - allies, long - Eldar).

First Turn: Allied forces get the first turn, however Eldar units count as having moved in the prior turn.

Game Length: Random Game Length

Victory Conditions: If the allied forces hold the gate they win.  Otherwise six objectives will be placed as normal and strategic victory points will determine victory.

Advance EMP: At the start of any Eldar Movement Phase after the first turn any Eldar Skimmer or Flyer that is within 12" of an allied force MC with the Jet Pack rule or flyer vehicle type must take a dangerous terrain test.

Masters of Divination: On the first turn of the game the eldar player may cast blessings during the opponent's psychic phase.  These blessings expire at the start of the Eldar player's turn as per usual.

40k Scale Void Spinner.

I finally finished it.  I'd been working on it off and on for a few months, mixed with some other projects, but now she's finally done.  The void Spinner.  I'd been inspired to try and track down an old Forgeworld Night Spinner kit and convert one of these for over a year, but it wasn't until a couple months ago that  I saw the parts come up on ebay and snatched them up as quickly as I could.

Below I have pictures of the finished conversion next to my other painted Vaul's engines, and next to its smaller cousin the Night Spinner.  The flash blows out the layering in the yellow on the void spinner array, but it looks quite nice in person.  once I get a basic Scorpion done and dusted I'll have the entire quartet of Vaul's engines.

Below are the rules I developed with my friend Saunders, a constant opponent, for the Void Spinner.  I really liked the description in the epic rules about the Void Spinner being another weapon that the Eldar consider somewhat horrific to bring to battle because it mixes their terraforming technology with their most gruesome form of weaponry.

Void Spinner 700 pts

Super heavy fast skimmer tank

Hp 9

Shuriken cannon and upgrades, see scorpion.

Void Spinner Array

Range 60" str 8/7/6 ap 3/5/- primary Weapon, apocalyptic mega blast, barrage, ignore cover, pinning, monofilament, abomination.

Abomination: The bacteria and wraithbone parasites, normally used for terraforming, unleashed in the monofilament salvoes are horrifying to behold as they reduce, metal, stone, flesh, and bone to organic compost. Pinning tests caused by wounds from this weapon are taken at -3 ld.

I'm also reprinting the Storm Serpent rules from a prior post, for those who missed it, since it's visible in the top picture.

Storm Serpent 475 pts

Super heavy fast skimmer tank transport*

HP 9

Pulse laser

Shuriken cannon and upgrades, see scorpion.

Up to 6 units with the infantry, Jetbike, fast skimmer, or walker unit type may be embarked upon the Storm Serpent at the start of the game. No units may embark upon the transport once the game has started.

Wraithgate: each turn up to 3 units embarked upon the Storm Serpent may disembark from any point along the front or sides of the Storm Serpent's hull. If the Storm Serpent is destroyed the embarked units suffer no negative effects and are instead immediately placed into ongoing reserve.

Spring Thaw

7 months to the day that I completed revamping the Guardian Defender unit Winter's Wrath, I have completed revamping and expanding Spring Thaw.  I've sized up the unit to a full 20 man squad, revamped the highlighting and basing and changed the breastplates to be bone white to make the unit visually stand out more.  In two weeks time I have an Apocalypse game scheduled, and I made two lists... one that worked entirely with models that are painted, and one that forced me to finally complete my work on this unit and also paint two more Farseers.  I still need to get the Farseers done, but this unit, which has been hanging over my head for quite some time, and had been put aside for shinier projects, is done.  Below I have an image of the original way they looked for comparison to the revamped look.

Even though my horde of infantry will probably die very fast I hope it looks truly impressive on the table before getting churned to little pink clouds of mist.

Gaming Aid for Psyker Units

As an Ulthwe player I was a big fan of the old GW psychic app, which helped me keep track of my psychic powers.  Once 7th launched they killed the app, changed and expanded the powers, so the old app doesn't really assist all that much.

That being the case I've created a handy sheet to help me for larger games.  I have a draft of the Farseer one in progress, but this is the Warlock/Spiritseer sheet.  It's a sheet with pictures of all my models with check boxes and I laminated the page so that I can use it  over and over again.

All in all it should make book keeping during a game that much quicker, and speed up my game.  Feel free to use this idea to make your own.

One Year On - Unit Review: Troops

I've been recovering from my injury, but it has considerably slowed all my hobby work.  Hopefully I'll have some big things to show off soon, but it's all slow going right now.  In the mean time, here's the next part of my review:

As I've said before, I'll be covering the Wraithguard and Wraithblades in troops as I think they are nearly always taken with a spiritseer in order to convert them to troops.

I may be alone in this belief, but in the future I'd like to see Wraithguard simply moved to troops.

Guardian Defenders

This is a unit that, prior to the release of the dex, I expected to become about 6 pts a model. GW went a different way and boosted their BS, WS and Ini to a standardized elf level, and gave the bladestorm buff to catapults, and battle focus rule all for a single point. For a T 3 model with a 5+ save I'd say they got the unit right, and the change to allowing full size squads to have a second heavy weapon felt like it was too slow in coming, but was a welcome change nonetheless.

Game Play – I tend to use this unit one of two ways. My preferred style is a full 20 models with 2 heavy weapons that can unleash a hellish amount of firepower to units brash enough to deep strike nearby. With battle focus they actually have a prayer of getting in range to shoot despite being on foot. If I need them to remain steadfast on an objective a model with a Shard of Anaris backs up the unit well. When I attach a warlock I enjoy giving them a singing spear, for some dreadnought threat, or for synergy with a dual bright lance unit, dropping some serious threat to transports considering getting close. Alternatively a minimum squad or squad with heavy weapon and warlock make for a good unit in a Wave Serpent. Not quite the same threat range as Dire Avengers, but their speed can catch a foe off guard. Don't forget the unit now has Plasma Grenades so if you're close enough it's good to throw one for that blast. The T5 of the weapon platform will generally make no difference to the unit, but the 3+ save can be a life saver against small arms fire. I can think of more than one occasion it's been able to tank 5 or more wounds on a unit, all but nullifying incoming fire.

In 7th: They are essentially unchanged in their performance and use for 7^th edition, though in a standard combined arms detachment they gain Objective Secured, which, of course makes them a difficult nut to crack when placed on an objective in cover.

Dire Avengers

The frontline unit for the eldar and most common aspect, this unit got a bit of a price bump, but also got some noticeable buffs battle focus, bladestorm (a vast improvement over their old power), counter attack, changes to wargear such as the improved shimmer shield.

Game Play – A lot of players like to use a 5 man squad with no upgrades as a Wave Serpent tax. I didn't like that tactic to make scoring falcons in 5^th (stupid that units could score sitting in a vehicle) and I like it just as little now. My preference is to use a full squad of 10, occasionally in a serpent, but generally I prefer them holding the front line, or pressing forward on foot, under the protection of a shimmer shield. I'll often run them with an Autarch that has a shard to make them fearless, or two units with an Avatar supporting them. All those 5+ invul saves can be a tough nut to crack.

Phoenix Lord - I have not used Asurmen, but I have faced him multiple times from multiple players. All but I think one or maybe two times he managed to get that reroll 1's on the save, effectively giving him a 2+ rerollable. It required low AP weapons to take him down as he was all but immune to small arms fire. He is no joke, and to have a “remove model from play” weapon can occasionally shock cahracters like Lysander, and synergizes with terrify and horrify.

In 7th: Counter Attack is automatic now, which is a blessing for me because I always forgot to test the LD until after. I can't imagine I was the only one. Otherwise, the CAD bonus rule makes them a unit to be reckoned with and they're as reliable as ever.

Storm Guardians

This unit is certainly solid, but they just don't fill enough of a stand-out role for me to use often. They can support better units in combat, but they can't do too much on their own. In the prior book I loved the unit in a Wave Serpent, with two flamers and a Warlock with Destructor. In 6^th the unit took a bit of a hit when DTW made Destructor unreliable. Then it became a randomly acquired power, and then harder to cast. However, the bump to BS made the fusion gun a more tempting option, plus the bladestorm rule means they can be flexible enough to do some extra damage to units with good armor.

Game Play – I have a friend that uses a unit of 20 to support his wraithguard, but units like the wyvern or phoenix bomber just erase them from the board. I use 10 in a wave serpent, nearly exclusively with dual flamers. The idea is to hit as hard as I can with a round of shooting against a unit in cover, and then tie up said unit.

In 7th: The same as 6^th really.

Wind Rider Jetbikes

A unit I liked at the launch of 6^th because they got that wonderful 5+ jink meant I could give the warlock leading the unit destructor. At the new book's release I often defaulted to conceal because they could get a meaty 3+ cover save or 2+ going flat out.

Game Play – I like using units of 6 with two Shuriken cannons and the firepower they put out is gross. I usually take a Warlock with singing spear to give the unit the option of conceal and a singing spear. They have the speed to get around to the weak armor on a vehicle and any opponent that ignores them is mad.

In 7th: Jink has changed, which means they can often have their firepower reduced (thankfully their weapons are twin linked), but it means with conceal they're pulling in a 2+ save and their speed means they're a beast in Maelstrom missions.

Wraithguard

A dependable unit when shifted to troops in the old book, but then they got Str 10 weapons back (thrilling in that they can more reliably splat characters) along with a price drop. They also got the option for D-scythes. I have used scythes, but have been horribly unlucky with them. That said I have heard them described by some as “pure wrongness.” No ability to mix weapon types is kind of a bummer.

Game Play – I feel like smaller units are too fragile to get the job done when on foot, so I tend to use units of 5 in a Serpent, and almost exclusively so for scythes. Send them after a specific, high priority target and try to devastate it. Be warned, thanks to the bladestorm rule mirror matches are especially punishing to Wraithguard units.

In 7th: The same as in 6^th, but a unit this tough is a pain when they have objective secured.

Wraithblades

A new variation for 6^th it finally created a close combat variation for Wraithguard. I do wish you could mix and match weapon types.

Game Play – I play with 5 of either variations, but I have come up against 10 strong squads of both, and the Axe version is incredibly survivable.

In 7th: The same as in 6^th, but a unit this tough is a pain when they have objective secured.

OVERALL

Eldar have some of the best core troop options in the game. It can make for very difficult decisions when building an army, and even though the Storm Guardians are roughly the worst option of the bunch, there really aren't any bad options.

BUILDS

Guardians: 20 on foot with two bright lances. Sit back and hold an objective.

Dire Avengers: 10 on foot with an Exarch with power weapon and shimmer shield. If at all possible give them fearless and take the centre of the table.

Storm Guardians: 10 in a Serpent with two flamers. Go after the most vulnerable units.

Windrider squads: 6 with two cannons. Attach a Warlock with singing spear. There is virtually no wrong way to use this unit other than sacrificing them for no gain.

Wraithguard: 5 with D-scythes in a Wave Serpent. Fly them out towards their target quick. Don't take the chance of getting stranded with an immobilized vehicle. If you can get on an opponent's victory spot in cover people will NOT want to charge you to clear you out.

Wraithblades: 5 with axes on foot. Hold them back and use them to counter the opponent's units that make headway into your deployment zone.