Forgeworld Avatar: new pictures

Greetings,

As you might remember, Trotzki painted the Avatar from Forgeworld some months ago. And since he wasn't happy with the pictures he made and they truly didn't to justice to his amazing work, he gave him to me to hopefully take some better pictures. And so I did my best.
Here he is again (click on the pictures to enlarge):  

The Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine

In my eyes he truly did an outstanding job. The contrast between the burning parts and the blue Alaitoc colours springs out really nicely.
So that's it. What do you think?

Finished Avatar of Khaine

Hi guys,

hereby I proudly present my first ever painted Forgeworld model. It really was a lot more work than I had expected, but I´m pleased with the outcome on the model. The last month (one month since the last post ... wow, time goes by fast) I finished the sword and the tabard. I painted the sword in the same way as the Avatars body with reverse highlighting from yellow to black. For the tabard I applied a blue color starting from Space Wolves Grey, Enchanted Blue and Regal Blue. After one big wash with Asurmen Blue the blue color looked really nice and I did my first try on the Avatar rune - what I really learned then was that my free hand skills are not that special but I start to get better (compared to the much bigger rune on the Autarchs jetbike I all went a lot faster and I hadn´t do that much of corrections after the first coat of yellow paint (thank god for GWs foundation yellow).
So here you see the finished Avatar. I will try to make some better pictures the next days and try my luck at Cool Mini Or Not.  
Next up on my ToDo List is the really nice model of PrinceYriel.

The Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine

And what really excites me today ..... PICS OF THE NEW FIRE PRISM ! Have to get two of them. They look really different compared to the old one but I kinda like the new look. Gives the cannon more of a "Bright Lance with fancy diamonds" feeling. The new Night Spinner also looks really nice, but I would like to see the rules on this one, before I can make my last judgement on it. Hopefully you can magnetize / pin the two cannons easily and change between the two setups...

Finished War Walker squadron and start of my FW Avatar of Khaine painting log

Hi guys,

as you might remember from my last post I started painting my Alaitoc War Walkers and finally was able to finish them this week. Two are equipped with scatter lasers and one with missile launchers. I still have two scatter lasers lying around to equip them all the same, but I first like to try some mixing - some test games will show if 24 shots with the scatter lasers win over the higher utility you get through the added krak and plasma missiles. So here are the pics of the finished squadron :

Alaitoc Scout Squadron  Shadowspear

After finshing my War Walkers I made the oath to my Space Elves to finally paint the FW Avatar of Khaine that has been lying around my painting desk for over 18 months now - taunting me with his details and frightening me with spoiling this beautiful model with the strokes of my brushes. About a year ago I already did start painting him, but quickly found out that its hard to do such a model justice. I primed him black and started highlighting the model with brighter colors starting from a 1:1 mixture of scab red  with chaos black and ending at a 1:1 mixture of sunburst yellow with skull wite. Unfortunatly the resulting painted leg looked very dull and dark to me and didn´t really met the picture I had in mind for the Avatar (Sadly I didn´t take any pictures of it). 

Some months ago I painted a squad of Fire Dragons with reverse highlighting. There I primed the models white and painted them in ever darker tones of red. I really was pleased with the outcome on these models, so I tried the same approach on the same leg of the Avatar after priming him white again. I started with the whole leg painted in golden yellow and after that started highlighting with darker shades of blazing orange, blood red, red gore, scab red and at the end chaos black. This time I´m really pleased with the brightness of the colors and I will try to finsish the Avatars lava parts with this technique. So here is the pic of my second try on his leg :  

 

So what do you think - anyone also had similar  bad experiences with highlighting from black to brighter colors ?

Some musings on the new Tyranids and freshly painted Eldar

Hi guys,

when checking any of the "big" W40k community forums at the moment you can´t really come around big discussion on the pros and cons of the new Tyranid Codex. With most of the rumored rules being known before the Codex has hit the shelfs, there was already a big crowd of long time players seeing the end of the world coming because the almighty Carnifex has fallen in the pit of overcostedness, while many others really anticipated the really "fresh" feeling the new list has in comparison to the 4th edition codex with its focus on Devourer-TMCs.

From the test games I had against the tyranids I also like to add my 10 cents to this discussion: From the point of an Eldar player the codex really feels like a new experience to play against - big horde armies are a real problem for Eldar players and so I really feared to be bogged down by a giant mass of screeching bugs. Interestingly the test game felt quite different - sure a horde list can also be viable, but the list really gives you targets from every category. Not only you have to be aware of small bugs and TMC, but you also need  a different appoach to kill big units of multiwound Warriors. Eldar can muster quite a big number of S6 weapons (War Walker, Warp Spiders) and these really are more efficient than one would think when used against Warriors but also against T6 monsters. In the test game a unit of Pathfinders also really suprised me with laying down 4 wounds on an Trygon , due to lucky rolling on my side. The small ones will be the job for units of Dire Avengers but here Eldar players really have to be carefull not to be overrun by big units of Hormaguants, which have a high I (Aspect warriors beware !) and lots of attacks for low points. Together with several possibilities to add some S8 weapons Eldar should be able to at least weaken or kill some of the big beasties before they hit the line.

There I think Eldar will really start to struggle : With one exception (the Reroll-It Seer Council of You-Can´t-Kill-Me) most Eldar units are really fragile and depend on doing a lot of damage before the enemy retaliates. I think lash whips will be the bane of units like Banshees and Harlequins. Damaging monstrous creatures worked quite well, in the test game but mostly through initating multiple combats together with weaker units (Tervigons together with Gaunts for example) - hitting just the little ones really can give the big one more fearless-wounds than he can handle. Here the Seer Council also has the really big advantage of just needing a 2+ to wound even the mightiest of creatures, which will further increase the use of big Warlock units with a Farseer. I wasn´t able to test Harlequins until now but they should also be quite efficient against non-lash whip TMCs but will be overwhelmed by Warriors or Gaunts. The Wraithlord proved to be quite efficient with its 2 S8 weapons and the two flamers when things get personal. His big problem will be the amount of poisonous units in the army - while in the test game he died to a Carnifex, so I can´t really comment on this but I don´t think he will win any combat against Toxin Sac carrying things (almost everything is able to do this in the Codex) .      

So much on my opinions on Eldar against the new Tyranid Codex.  And because my New Years pledge was to first paint all my Eldar stuff lying around before painting anything new I also started to again take up the banner of proud craftworld Alaitoc and painted some models again. Here you see the first of my squadron of scatter laser War Walkers :

I also painted the limited edition Wraithbone Singer (will be used as Farseer - hopefully GW adds some rules in the next Eldar codex for this guy) I still had lying around :

 

I really like the dynamic pose of this model and the picture just does it no justice. To finish my Eldar to-do-list I still have to paint 2 War Walker, Prince Yriel and my FW Avatar (yikes). So still a lot to do before new stuff comes to town ....

I will also write some word on my opinion on Chaos Daemons against the new Tyranids the next days.

And it burns, burns, burns ...

Hi guys,

i hope I can draw some attention from Managarms shiny (and perfectly done) Stormblade to my Fire Dragons I painted the last weeks. I bought the Falcon-friendly squad of six and magnetized the exarchs shoulder and weapons so he can switch between the fancy "my melter is longer than yours"-pike to itch some tanks and the Dragons Breath flamer to roast the small stuff.
So here´s the squad :

The shoulder magnet (first time I´ve done this - so I am a little proud) :


Now onwards to the FW Avatar ....

Fire Dragons

Last week I started some work on my much needed firedragons. With my FW Avatar in mind I tried two different approaches for painting heat/lava effects. On the body I started with a dark red colour (scab red) and from there in used brighter colours (red gore, blazing orange, golden yellow, sunburst yellow - all in different mixtures). On the helmet I used the opposite approach and started with sunburst yellow and darked it to rear.

Front

Rear

The effect on the helmet looks more smooth (I think the photo is not doing it justice), but painting the whole Avatar yellow will be a pain.

Tons of Bits ... (WIP Jetbike Autarch)

Hi guys,

after doing a little check list on all my Eldar bits lying around, I stumbled over an old Jetbike I didn´t use for my Spears Of Khaine (GW´s only selling those in three-bike boxes with a maximum squad size of the being 5... nice thing is you also get the whole equipment for 3 Guardian Jetbikes). First idea was a jetbike farseer but those really need a seer council of expensiveness to be any effective, so I decieded to add a second autarch to my army. In addition to the bike I used bits from several boxes : Head and torso are both from a Dire Avenger exarch ( I especially like the head from this box more than the "omg-screaming"-one from GW´s autarch on bike box), while legs and arms are from the shining spears exarch (with the niffty one-hand control I didn´t use for my Spears because I had already glued the bike handles ...). The pseudomandiblasters at the side of the autarchs head are the spiky tops of the "flag mast" that was supposed to be added to the backward part of the Guardian Jetbikes. The two banners at the bikes backside are the alternative backpack for the Warpjump-Autarch. First coloring of the model is now finished but still needs a little trimming, especially at the bike, and a fitting base...

Trotzkis Starwanderers of Alaitoc (part 2)

So here you have the second part of my Alaitoc army. Troops and Heavy Support - the most powerful sections of an eldar army (in my opinion).

Troops :

The Guardians of Alaitoc

Guardians ... what to say about them ... Got most of them from Ebay (notice the second edition starcannon) and they were they first models I have painted. Learned the hard way that it´s really better to keep them back and as cheap as possible cause they die like flies and run whenever the avatar doesn´t back them up. The starcannon is nice for termie busting but against anything else it´s just expensive overkill.

The Pathfinders of Alaitoc

So fluffwise these models are the most important of any Alaitoc force. As you can see I only have five finished until now - but aanother five are almost done. When upgraded to pathfinders and put into +4 cover these guys are really a pain. Without the upgrade they are a little to expensive for my taste.

Exarch Motri´Archel and his Dire Avengers

More Dakka ... thats my first thought on these guys ... I´m not used playing with other "volume of fire" armies, but it is very satisfying to unleash over 30 shots from one unit. They really earn my respect in every game (in contrast to the guardians). Especially when going "Serpent of Fury" they really wrack havoc. The Exarch is also equipped with two catapults to get most of the humble bladestorm.

Wavesperpent "Eldaneshs fury"

A falcon without holofield ... omg. I know that most people in forums tell you not to take them (especially not with the lances) but the serpent almost always takes it freight at least near the enemy (please ignore that the battle report in this regard). A second one is in production to give my Dire Avengers and the Banshees a confortable ride.

Heavy Support:

Exarch Quar´Astacil and his Dark Reapers

I have read an article on bolter and chainswords some weeks ago were a marine player proclaimed he wouldn´t play an eldar player that is using this unit. While I also have to say that this unit is every marines worst nighmare, I also really like to point out, that a troup of five with exarch costs as much as a terminator unit with assault cannons and that with less armour and toughness. On the other side they very often tend to completly rule one half of the map - unless they are hit by a stray lasercannon shot and run of the field (I´m really good at failing morale tests with them - as with my Spears). When the rumored rules for scattering of blast weapons in the fitth edition are true you will soon see the exarch with an tempest launcher and crack shot.

Wraithlord Taranorth

Tankbuster No.1 in my army and always good for some endgame (he is always around) IC crushing (again - don´t look at the battle report ... stupid Hermann...). The only drawback on him is that he and my Farsser have some unhealthy relationship regarding perils of the warp. It seems that poor Ald´Rhun has some bad headache when getting to near to Mr. FancyWarroirSpirit and always sends his mind for little warpwalk. That is why Taranorth often suddenly lacks wraithsight ... and the old guy rather throws curses on all the young folk running around his feet instead of busting land raiders und ripping Company Masters to shreds.

Falcon "Ishas Avenger"

I know that, as a good eldar player, it would be my responsibiliy to tell you that holofields are fine and that there are a lot cheesier units in the game ... But after the experience of 5 Heavy Bolters (Tank Hunter), 2 Missle launchers (Tank Hunter), 2 Lascannons and 2 Plasmaguns shooting on this flying wonder without having it destroyed I also got the strong feeling something might be fishy. Paired with the odd six harelquins of cheesiness you have a "point-and-click" unit that is winnig games on its own. I´m really exited if you will see a difference in his durability in the next edition.

Support Weapon Platforms

I know what you think ! ... I like them ... Once they destroyed a whirlwind in round one ... and once they killed some guardsmen and they were pinned. They also are really good at standing around and holding quarters ! Well other there is not much to say about them. Inexpensive but in most cases almost useless against anything with good armour. I´ve I ever finish my warwalker squad they will take there place in my footslogger army.

So this is all - hope you enjoyed this little showcase... hopfully you will see this guys in action again soon...

TrotzkiHatesMe

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Turn 5/6

As usual the 5^th turn began with psychic powers. The farseer fortuned himself and doomed the LasPlas marines on the tower.

The dire avengers and the avatar continued their walk towards the mechanicum and on the left flank the wraith lord and the guardians not in close combat advanced as well.

The dark reapers exterminated the LasPlas marines on the left and the wraith lord shot again on the librarian but missed entirely. The avatar shot his melta sword on the landspeeder and shook the crew. The doomed LasPlas squad on the tower lost one marine to the fire of the last three dire avengers. The guardians ignored the librarian and shot at the devastator squad and downed 2.

The master could only kill 1 guardian but that broke the morale of them and they ran away. He repositioned himself facing the advancing wraith lord he intended to charge.

The Avatar had to die and so the last 2 missile launchers and the LasPlas marines targeted him and caused one wound on the monstrous creature.

Death-defyingly the master charged the wraith lord but could dodge the deathly blows and kicks of the monstrous xenos warrior. In return he landed 4 devastating blows and wounded it severely (2 wounds). The Librarian attacked the remaining guardians but could just kill 1. But the righteous charge of the psyker was too much for them and they broke close combat and fled. The librarian just turned away from them and tried to reach the mechanicum.

Turn 6

The warp must have been very turbulent over the battlefield and even the farseer couldn’t focus and so the last turn began with no successful psychic powers.

Both decimated guardian squads had their morale broken and ran away. But the nearest unit to the mechanicum building shot their star cannon on the flight but after close combat with the librarian they were too confused to hit anything. The snipers of the pathfinders targeted the remaining LasPlas marines but couldn’t do any harm. The dark reapers tried to shoot the librarian in the back but the missiles weren’t able to penetrate the terminator armour. And one barely could believe it the shadow weavers killed 2 space marines! (LasPlas on the tower).

The avatar moved into the building and shot again on the landspeeder and destroyed the assault cannon and then charged. The burning sword cut cleanly into the reactor of the flyer and ripped it apart in a gigantic explosion consuming the avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine!

On the other side of the battlefield the wraithlord was too stunned by the hammer blows and was smashed down by the marine master who then moved towards the dark reapers.

On my turn the master further advanced and finally charged the dark reapers, killing them both. The last missile launcher shot a fragmentation missile into the dire avengers what killed 2. The last marine on the tower aimed his by now really hot plasma gun at the farseer. But the ancient technology was too stressed after having fired so rapidly and exploded killing the marine.

That pretty much ended the game. No one had brought a scoring unit into the enemy building and so we concluded on a draw!

This game was really fun to play as it was exciting to the very last round! We both nearly wiped out the other army that only a few (non-scoring) units had been left (ok, except the shadow weavers and the pathfinders…but ugh…should they really be there?...).

I think we both enjoyed the game and there have been some really funny moments!

Trotzkis Starwanderers of Alaitoc (part 1)

With most of the battle report of our last game online, I decided it´s time to bring out the cheese and show off my proud craftworld childs. This is my first Warhammer 40k army and as such I stuck to one of the standard paint shemes - Alaitoc - because I like the wanderer fluff and the bright colours. You may recognize that I have some models (like the shadow weavers and my quite big seer council) many people would never use in a "sane" (means competitive) list. So here they are - sorted by there place in the FOC :

HQ :

Farseer Ald´Rhun and the seer council of Alaitoc

So here you have every eldar players favourite HQ choice. With fortune and doom he really never disappointed me (even if he pops his quite intellgent head, while thinking to hard about the future and stuff). When I started this eldar army I was able to catch me five quite inexpensive warlocks on E-Bay. Together with the three I already had, this lead to one big point sink. But once this unit gets into melee, especially when they are fortuned they tend to hack away their foes by sheer number of wounds. When they aren´t fortuned ... well thats one juicy target.

Autarch Shil´Haram

One underused HQ is my shiny little autarch. Has seen some nice games when going to war with my warpspiders. Alone he often tends to go down in a blaze of glory because even with decades of battle experience low toughness and strength are often enough to bring him down quite fast. I think he would be used more if it wasn´t for the other two HQ choices that tend to outclass him.

The Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine

What´s not to like about this guy ? The Avatar of war leads my eldar in almost every game to war and fills the hearts of my little eldar with visions of bloodshed. Fortuned he is near unkillable and whenever he reaches the enemy lines he hits is one furious bastard. My favourite memory is him getting charged by five assault termis with chaplain and come out almost unharmed! Thats one incorporation of a war god.... if only the model would be a little more up to date. But there is always Forgeworld...

Elite :

Troupe Master Farlarith and his Harlequins

Let´s say it all together : CHEEESSSEE. That´s everyone first thought on these wanderers of the webway. Really like the fluff of these guys and the link they put between the craftworlds and the dark eldar. In game terms there isn´t much other to say as to avoid these guys in CC and shoot the hell out of them. They tend to kill whatever they attack and once they are in melee the game often completly tends to get onesided. When combinded with a Cheddar-GOD-justcantkillit-Falcon ... well almost every player who met a tri-falcon list knows the outcome...

Exarch Sariss and her Howling Banshees

The girls of the shrine of the banshee never disappointed me in the games I use them. Quick and deadly they slice away the enemies. They may be made of shiny eldar glass and die like flies once hit but in melee even assault marines get a beating.

Fast Attack :

Exarch Nutaniel`Shardah and his Warp Spiders

My warp spiders have seen some really good and some awfully bad games. I seem to have some real luck when shocking them, so I have made a lot of good experience with that (many people will disagree with that I think). The really tend to rip everything to shreds when shooting and when joined by the autarch, he and the exarch will also put out some damage in close combat. The only backside is their price ... even power armour won´t protect you from a whole army´s shooting.

Exarch Ipharil´Setar and his Shining Spears

Here it is - the mother of all hit-or-miss units. When they reach there target ... oh what a joy - they just blew the enemy away. In theory this unit is every marines and terminators bane, but in the game... well... sometimes they work and sometimes they won´t. Really one risky unit - from my experience it´s best to keep them back and wait for a reeaally good target to charge.

So much for the HQ, Elite and Fast Attack options. Troops and Heavy Support you find in part 2 of Trotzkis Starwanderers of Alaitoc.

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Turn 4

Again the farseer tried to fortune the avatar but this time it didn’t work but he doomed the master of the marines and the bodyguards.

The avatar moved towards the assault marines, the dire avengers marched in the direction of the devastator squad and the banshees jumped over their wrecked transport and headed towards my left flank. The last 3 warp spiders did the same.

The ranger fired again on the LasPlas squad on the tower and shot 1 of them down. The combined fire of the warp spiders and the dire avengers took 3 of the devastators down but the morale of their brothers couldn’t be broken.

On the other flank the guardians targeted the advancing terminators and killed them all. The wraith lord again tried to kill a space marine leader but failed. The dark reapers fired their missiles on the LasPlas squad in the ruins but they ducked behind the rubble and nothing happened. Needless to say, that the shadow weavers failed again to kill anything.

The banshees stormed howling into close combat with the LasPlas squad and sliced effortlessly through the power armour and killed 2 of them. Dazed by this furious onslaught the marines couldn’t do anything. The assault marines faced the avatar of war and lost 4 brothers to the burning creature. The sergeant tried to hit it with his power fist but wasn’t able to do any harm.

The librarian tried again to focus but failed yet again.

The master moved towards the guardians to take revenge for his fallen terminators and the landspeeder moved into position to fire on the dire avengers and killed 3, the nearby LasPlas squad killed another 4 of them. The warp spiders were blasted apart by the missile launchers and the heavy bolter.

Meanwhile the avatar killed the assault sergeant and moved towards the mechanicum building. The banshees killed 2 more but 1 died in return by the marines until the librarian reached the fight and killed the last of them with his force staff. Before the master could smash 4 of the guardians under mighty hammer blows he was attacked by the couraged cicilians in arms and thy managed to pierce the terminator armour and inflicted one wound.

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Turn 3

All psychic powers of the farseer worked and the avatar became fortuned and the assault marines were doomed. But the warp tried to break through into reality and the farseer was attacked but his ghost helm held off the perils of the warp!

Moving phase was done quickly, the spiders jumped in front of the assault marines and the harlequins and dire avengers further moved towards my lines. On the other flank the wraith lord and the guardians did the same. Farseer and avatar stayed a little bit behind.

The fire of the warp spiders sent 5 assault marines to the ground and the dark reapers finally wiped out the heavy bolter devastator squad. Both star cannons took the librarian and his last terminator bodyguard as target and killed the elite warrior in a blaze of plasma fire. Now that the librarian was on his own the wraith lord fired the bright lance and missile launcher on him but the Emperor protects and nothing happened! The rangers killed another marine on the tower but weren’t able to pin them. The shadow weavers again had no luck and killed nothing.

On my turn the master and his terminators advanced in direction of the dark reapers to bring the assault cannons to bear. The librarian moved a bit behind them. Seeing the harlequins in range the assault marines moved in a probably suicidal jump out of cover right in front of them.

Both flamers of the assault marines opened fire and bathed the xenos in a gout of promethium and completely burned them to ashes! The LasPlas squad on the tower and the landspeeder targeted the warp spiders and killed 4. Having witnessed their comrades shredded into bloody mist by sustained bolter and plasma fire their courage broke and they retreated 16” towards the avatar. Seeing this mighty incarnation of war their spirit rose and they regrouped.

The librarian tried again to focus his psychic energies but the warp was too dense that he couldn’t cast the fury of the ancients.

The assault cannons of the terminators tore 3 dark reapers apart and the missile launchers of the last devastator squad killed another 2 banshees.

I achieved my unofficial goal to kill the harlequins ;-) but I had to sacrifice the assault marines for that. But I think that they would have caused more damage if they had reached my lines.
From my point of view the battle looked a little bit grim for me since my troops became really decimated that turn and a lot of eldar stood near my building and I only had the master and his retinue near the enemy position facing the wraitlord, 2 star cannons and the 2 remaining reapers.
But have faith in Him! The Emperor protects!

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Turn 2

This turn would see some serious firefights so let's see how it turned out:

The second turn started with psychic powers and the farseer fortuned the avatar and tried to doom the librarian with his retinue but the psychic hood denied that.

Trotzki rolled for reserves and his dire avengers became available and appeared at the sewer entry next to his harlequins facing my right flank, he then moved them 2” back trying to get into cover but did not reach it. The warp spiders and the serpent moved in front of the dire avengers, the harlequins stood in the back of them. The farseer and the avatar moved forward as well.

The shooting phase began with the warp spiders wiping out the lower LasPlas squad, quickly followed by the upper LasPlas squad which was blade-stormed by the dire avengers. The serpent killed one marine of the heavy bolter devastator squad, the dark reapers killed another 3 but the decimated marines passed their leadership test and held the ground. The star cannons of the two guardian squad and the wraith lord targeted the librarian squad again and killed 2. The shadow weavers shot on the assault marines again, but killed none. After the shooting phase the warp spiders made a fatal second jump: they lost one in the warp (Trotzki rolled double six) and that took them partly off the field what killed another 2…

I moved the landspeeder away from the backward sewer entry and faced the warp spiders but hid behind the ruin to stay out of sight of the rest of his army. The terminators advanced further forwards but I consistently rolled badly for difficult terrain so they moved just another 2”.

The serpent was my worst concern at this moment and I tried to down it so that the banshees would be entangled and maybe lose some. So both LasPlas squads and the devastator squad with the missile launchers shot at it. And all I achieved was to shake it. This thing was nearly as resilient as a falcon… Following the "always concentrate your fire-rule" both terminator squads had to shoot at it as well. Again another shaken result and the last assault cannon shot it down and destroyed it. 5 banshees died in the crash. The heavy bolter devastator squad then shot at the guardians and killed 4. Finally the landspeeder targeted the warp spiders but the xenos armour held off all incoming bullets. The serpent having soaked up nearly the whole firepower of my army this round really was very bad for the marines and I had a very bad feeling for the third turn. At least the banshees were pinned and the dire avengers would not shoot after having blade-stormed.

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Turn 1

Trotzki won the roll and chose to begin.

Basically he moved everything to the front except the dark reapers, shadow weavers and the guardians. The shooting was opened by the barrage of the shadow weaver targeting the assault marines and causing 4 wounds but the power armour took the brunt of it and none fell. The bright lance and missile launcher of the wraithlord found their mark and one terminator of the librarian squad was evaporised. Another terminator of the same squad was hit by a starcannon but the plasma bolt couldn't burn through the thick armourplate. The missile barrage of the dark reapers killed 4 marines of the heavy bolter devastator squad. During this heavy pounding a sniper of the pathfinder team took a bullet right through an armour joint of a marine from the LasPlas squad on the mechanicum tower.

On my turn 1 I moved my Terminators forward but they just managed 3” due to difficult terrain. Since my Assault Marines were bunched up and targeted by the blasts of the enemy artillery I spread them a little bit but they held position. The librarian tried to focus to let a psychic construct rush towards the enemy but because of the runes of warding of the runeprophet he took a perils of the warp attack and lost one wound. The master’s terminators opened fire with both assault cannons and stormbolters on the avatar of Khaine and wounded him two times. Encouraged by this the terminator retinue of the librarian targeted him as well but didn’t wound him. The LasPlas Marines near the terminators tried to shoot on the dark reapers but failed their target priority check and had to shoot on the guardians and killed one. The devastators had more luck in shooting at the dark reapers and managed to inflict 9 wounds on them, but oh dear, they passed ALL NINE armour saves! Bad, very bad. Since nothing juicy was in range or sight for the other squads I tried to shoot on the harlequins but the veil of tears dazed all marines trying to target them.

This ended Turn 1.

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: Mission scenario and Deployment

Ok here we go with the scenario and deployment!

We decided to play in the Cities of Death since that would grant us a much nicer background for the pics (I guess my carpet isn’t the proper background for the first batrep eh?).

We would play on level gamma the mission “counter attack” (don’t know exactly the English description for that mission): Each player chooses one building he wants to defend. To win the game one has to bring all defending enemy units in the building below ¼ strength and must bring one scoring unit into it. On gamma level we played without victory points. So no matter what happens, defending the own building and seizing the enemy building is the only way to win.

So we set up the field of battle!

Trotzki took “sharpshooters” (no cover saves against sniper weapons! Nice for his pathfinders when they pump out ds1 shots…) and “sewer rats” as stratagems and he rolled for 5 entry points. In turn I took “power generators” (re-roll to wound) for my building and further fortified it to receive a 3+ cover save and, what convinced me, I would strike first against his Harlequins for the fortified building special rule negates the effects of enemy grenades!

Trotzki won the roll for deciding in which quarter to start and he chose the quarter with the belltower (upper right). So I had to start in the opposite quarter in the mechanicum building.

We both deployed in and around our building, Trotzki set up a little more aggressive leaving no designated defender in the building except the shadow weaver. Everything else could easily walk towards me. The Dire Avengers were held in reserve. They would come through the sewers.


I obviously placed both devastator squads and all but one LasPlas Squad in the mechanicum. The heavy bolter only dev squad was placed infront of his dark reapers, backed up by a LasPlas squad and both terminator squads with my master and the librarian attached to them. One of the sewer entries was blocked this way. Both units should walk towards Trotzki’s building and soak some fire. I hold my assault team back as a countercharge unit should something come into 18” range and I was sure, something would and this way they had another two sewer entries in range. Two LasPlas Squads should defend my right flank, backed up by the smaller devastator squad. The landspeeder blocked the other sewer entry in the back of my deployment zone.

So after deployment and a short prayer to the emperor the battle was ready to begin!

Batrep Eldar vs. Space Marines: The Armies

Hey folks!
As promised we had the game last night! And we had a lot of fun!
First of all let me introduce the armies: Trotzki played his Eldar versus my Marines. We decided to play at 2000 points each and designed our armies without knowing what was to come. So here is what we came up with:

sidenote: Trotzki decided to leave the Falcon at home and played his Harlequins footslogging. My thanks to him!



Eldar:

HQ:

Avatar of Khaine 155

Farseer (Ghost Helm, runes of warding, spirit stones, doom, fortune) 145

Elites:

Harlequin Troupe 6 (Shadowseer, troupe master, veil of tears) 178

Howling Banshees 10 (Exarch, Acrobatic, War Shout) 372

Wave Serpent (spirit stones, vectored engines, star engines)

Troops:

Dire Avengers 10 (Exarch, Bladestorm) 152

Guardian Defender Squad 10 (Star cannon, warlock) 130

Guardian Defender Squad 10 (Star cannon, warlock) 130

Fast Attack:

Warp Spiders 10 (Exarch, withdraw, surprise assault) 272

Heavy Support:

Dark Reapers 5 (Exarch, missile launcher, fast shot, crack shot) 227

Wraithlord 155

Support Weapon (shadow weaver 3, crew 6) 90

2006 points

Space Marines:

HQ:

Master (terminator armour, thunderhammer, storm shield) 140

Epistolary Librarian (terminator armour, storm shield, fury of ancients, fear of darkness) 164

Elites:

Terminator Squad 5 (2 Assault cannons, tank hunter) 255

Terminator Squad 5 (2 Assault cannons, tank hunter) 255

Troops:

Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115

Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115

Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115

Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115

Fast Attack:

Assault Squad 10 (veteran sergeant, powerfist, 2 flamer) 262

Land Speeder Tornado (Assault cannon, heavy bolter) 80

Heavy Support:

Devastator Squad 9 (4 heavy bolter, tank hunter) 222

Devastator Squad 6 (2 Missile launcher, 1 heavy bolter, tank hunter) 163

Chapter Traits:

Suffer not the work of heretics

Death before dishonour

2001 points

As you can see, my Marines are painted as Black Templar but I do not play them as those. They use the Traits for the Imperial Fists.

Sidenote #2: As I was writing this and checked the pictures and remembered the game...I realised that the vicious Eldar had once again played their trickery! They infiltrated a squad of Pathfinders into the list! Without paying for them!

Ok, this can happen, Trotzki surely didn't do that on purpose! And I didn't realize it so absolutely no blaming to him!

That being said you can await the next parts of the Batrep the next days...

Sigismund