Once I have completed my resolution to have basic 3k forces painted for 3 EA rulebook armies (Orks and IG mainly done and SM started), I want to do the same for EA Eldar. I have never played using EA Eldar and have only had 1-2 games facing them, so I need some help in getting up to speed with Eldar.

I'm sticking with Biel-Tan for 3 reasons. Firstly because I have some figures basecoated green but also as I have several VoidSpinner models, and lastly because it is in Swordwind book.

To start with I wanted to focus on warhosts- I have the equivalent of two of current GW Eldar Warhosts, so I would have: 28 Guardian stands, 4 Warlock stands, 4 Howling Banshee stands, 4 Striking Scorpion stands, 4 Swooping Hawks stands, 4 Wraithguard stands, 4 Dark Reapers stands, 4 Warp Spider stands.

I am looking to field 4 warhosts - 2 Guardian and 2 Aspect Warrior:

1) Aspect Warrior: Autarch, Exarch, 4 Dark Reaper & 2 ??
2) Aspect Warrior: Scorpion Exarch, Banshee Exarch, 3 Striking Scorpions, 3 Banshees
3) Guardian: 1 Farseer, 3 Wraithguard
4) Guardian: 1 Farseer and 7 Guardian

(In addition I will have 1 formation each of Rangers, Warwalkers, Jetbikes, Falcons, Fire Prisms, Night Spinners and EoV).

My thinking was that as Autarch is Supreme Commander I would probably use this Aspect Warrior formation more cautiously whilst the other is intended to be more offensive and get stuck in. The first Guardian formation is intended to be more rrsilient with the Wraithguard, whilst the last one is kept bare bones so can transport.

Initially I will have 4 Wave Serpents available (in time will be able to raise that to 8-12). So for 3 of the Warhosts will be either webway or footsloggers (I do have a load of Falcons but they look expensive as APC's).

Based on the figures I have listed above that are initially available to me, how would you recommend structuring the 4 Warhosts?
Which Aspects work well with Dark Reapers?
Which Aspects are best suited as Exarchs?
Which formation should get the 4 Wave Serpents?
Should I mount any of other 3 formations in Falcons or leave them as webway/footslogging?

Thanks very much

James

I think you may well struggle to make up the two aspect formations.... I'm no expert, but standard formations with reapers tend to be a couple of reaper exarchs for the 2 extra 3+ FF shots, then a mix of dire avengers and fire dragons....

alternatively reapers synergise well with scorpions for the assault/firefight tactic

I would say without more aspects you'll struggle to make two strong formations.... might be worth hunting around the classifieds or ebay for extra aspects, I was lucky enough to pick up an extra 4 stands worth of warp spiders and hawks

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Just some guy

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there are as many different ways to field Aspects and Guardians as there are stars in the sky (well, almost) and almost as many threads about it, so you'll get lots of different but equally valid opinions

The most reliable way to field a BT Autarch is in either a Shining Spear fm or a mech aspect fm, so that it can be on board from the get go. There are also Aspects that synergise well with each other, including Dark Reapers and Fire Dragons in shooty mech assault support fms (lots of AP, LOTS of FF) and Dire Avengers + Striking Scorpions in Vampire borne assault fms (SS up front to take hits or BtB weak CC fms like Russes) and others that do better alone, such as Warp Spiders (gate or Vampire), Swooping Hawks or Shining Spears. However, one way of reducing the cost of a mech Aspect fm is to add a couple of Swooping Hawks or Shining Spears to reduce the no. of wave serpents you need.

Exarchs should be FF specific ideally, so you can hide them at the back of an assault as their Inspiring is far more valuable than any hit they can score. I like Dark Reaper exarchs for their FF3, but if you're playing EpicUK Eldar then Fire Dragon exarchs are a no brainer as they have MW EA. Dire Avenger exarchs have some use defensively as they get their EA on their CC attacks. Warp Spider exarchs are the best though, but you'll be taking those anyway if you field Warp Spiders

Wave serpents for Autarch containing Aspect fm first, then one of the Guardian fms.

Falcons as transport = expensive and poo. Falcons as anti tank = awesome.

Guardians + wraithguard in the webway can be seriously lethal, but you tend to have to shape your whole strategy around them, which would include storm serpents too, as a single fm coming out of the wraithgate is easy enough to avoid, even though it makes for a useful exclusion zone. Once the fm is out, it's relatively slow and vulnerable. In non-Ulthwe lists, Guardians are useful as blitz guards, mounted in wave serpents and as Avatar delivery vehicles (unless you're going webway heavy). For a blitz guard, loading up on support and heavy weapons is worth doing, then sticking it on overwatch in cover. Wave serpents is self explanatory and for delivering the Avatar, you just want to spend as few points on it as possible and hope the Farseer survives long enough

Ok- I'll try to rephrase the question.

1) Lets pretend I have only the following units:
28 Guardian stands,
4 Warlock stands,
4 Howling Banshee stands,
4 Striking Scorpion stands,
4 Swooping Hawks stands,
4 Wraithguard stands,
4 Dark Reapers stands,
4 Warp Spider stands,
4 Wave Serpents
(I will also have 1 formation each of Rangers, Warwalkers, Jetbikes, Falcons, Fire Prisms, Night Spinners and EoV)

2) I want to create 2 Aspect Warhosts and 2 Guardian Warhosts.

3) I will be using the default Swordwind list (so no Net EA or EUK lists).

From the figures I have listed, AND ONLY USING THOSE FIGURES LISTED, what would you recommend?

Thanks very much

James

That you get a blister or two of Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers.

Seriously though, start with a pair of Guardian Warhosts with two Wraithguard each, and an Aspect Host of two Reapers, a Reaper Exarch, a Reaper Autarch, four Scorpions, and four Wave Serpents. The rest of your Aspects either are outshined by others in the same niche (Banshees) or are best in mono-Aspect formations (Hawks, Spiders).

Getting a single blister of Shining Spears or a blister of Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers and another 4 Wave Serpents would allow amuch better mix. Failing that, I'd try a third Guardian Warhost.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Thanks SG for actually taking note of what figures I have immediately available.

I can't have been the only person in the last decade who wanted to start an EA army with two Warhost infantry box sets as currently sold by GW!!

This is purely to have an initial painting target as I am to have four fully painted 3K Intro armies (SM, IG, Orks and Eldar). Once I have achieved that I can go through each army in turn, work out what I need to use from my current selection of EA figures and/or buy what I am missing, and then sell/trade the rest. The idea is to gradually whittle down the amount of unused EA figures I have.

Thanks

James

I was under the impression that the wraithguard could only be fielded in sets of three.

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In Swordwind this is true. The NetEA Biel-Tan list changed this to 2-3 @ 50 points each, assumedly due to the fact each Warhost box only has two stands.

Edit - See page 161 of the 2012 Compendium.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I have spent the afternoon flicking through the EUK and Net EA Biel-Tan lists to see what would affect they would have on my initial 3K list. The main change in Net EA list for me seemed to be that Falcons & Fire Prisms are now all in one formation, but that formation size is now 5-6.

Thanks

James

ah, I forgot that you don't get Dire Avengers or Fire Dragons with warhosts any more. I'd repeat what SG said, but add that you can get old lascannons/ vibrocannons for next to nothing (I'd even put some in an envelope if you wanted them), so I'd do one Guardian warhost with 3 wraithguard units (based 5 per) in the webway and one with heavy+support weapons on the blitz. Or, base your wraithguard 3 per stand, then you'd be able to field 2 Guardian warhosts with them, although that's a fair amount of points tied up in the webway and coming out of 1 wraithgate.

Working with just exactly what you have (pardon my missing the original emphasis, would have saved me writing stuff for no purpose), you can take 4 swooping hawks with a mech aspect fm, so save 100pts on transports. That would free up 2 wave serpents, for what ever use you may have for them.

Yep, the consolidation into Swords of Vaul is one of the big changes. Another is Fire Priems: EUK (and Swordwind) have 75cm AP4+/AT4+/AA5+ Lance Prism Cannon. NetEA has a 60cm AP4+/AT2+ Lance Cannon. A better tank hunter, but no ungodly AA bubble anymore. NetEA transport Falcons are +50 instead of EUK and Swordwind's +65. EUK Fire Dragon Exarchs get EA+1, MW, while NetEA just get a normal extra attack. I think that covers the big differences.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I understand your frustration but the units are what they are: warp spiders simply don't combine well with other aspects, they can't be transported but are infiltrators, so combining them with other aspects just gives you movement inefficiencies one way or the other. Eldar are incredibly dependent on their movement, especially aspects which are assault orientated and can't garrison. Swooping Hawks are similar - you're paying for teleport you can't use - but if you include them in a mech formation they do at least reduce the wave serpents you need. This doesn't give you any more transport though (you can keep 2 of your 4 serpents back from a formation, but you have nowhere else to use them). That leaves 4 scorpions, 4 reapers and 4 banshees - not enough for 2 aspect formations. Banshees are not as good as the other two. You also only have enough transports for 8 units, and none of these three aspect types work well without transport. To field 2 aspect hosts, you therefore need to decide whether to drop spiders, hawks or banshees. IMO 15cm CC units without transport (i.e. banshees) are the least workable, so drop those. Given all this, the least sucky combination is probably:

4 scorpions, 4 reapers, reaper autarch, reaper exarch, 4 serpents
4 hawks, 4 spiders, 2 spider exarchs

That gives you one good formation, and another, erm, not so good but the fastest you can manage with what you have. They'd be better coming out of a wraithgate (assuming you have one), but both of your guardian formations really need this too. I think the formation most deserving of the gate is the guardians+wraithguard.

The remaining naked guardians are cannon fodder - they'll die in droves and/or not get anywhere useful. Sorry, not much you can do if you have to have 4 warhosts but only 1 set of transports.

Personally, I don't think you have an army that will play like Eldar without getting more transports of some form (serpents, vampire, storm serpent). The least outlay is probably 2 serpents and 3 weapon platforms - that would let you put guardians on the blitz and make the second aspect formation properly mobile (replace the spiders with banshees).

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Ooh, a puzzle !

I had a similar problem back when I (re-)started playing a year and a half ago - I had no Aspect models at all.

My solution was to make Aspects out of the ridiculous quantities of guardians I had by simply painting them differently. I rather liked Fire Dragons, so I got two full formations of those - they're bright yellow/red, so they stand out readily enough.

If this solution is not too distasteful for you, I'd recommend

7x Guardians, Farseer, 3 Wraithguard
7x Guardians, Farseer
8x Fire Dragons (2x Exarch) (repainted guardians)
4x Striking Scorpions (2x Exarch), 4x Dark Reaper (Exarch+Autarch), Wave Serpents

I still recommend you go shopping - you need an Avatar, some AA, and more transports. Support weapons and Wraithlords are cheap and plentiful too, and they turn the humble guardian hosts into fearsome and resilient killing machines too.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

It is not lack of minatures or alternatives that is the problem. I probably have 20,000 points worth still mint in boxes / on sprues.

I just wanted to start small- because I will probably end up having to sell most of my Eldar stuff in time (as they are not my main army). So I wanted to start with just the basic 2 boxes of Warhosts, plus one of each of the other Troupe formations, to have an initial painting target, and then in time build the army from there.

It just reflects how poor the current Warhost sprues are compared to the previous sprues.

Cheers

James

Hmm. While I absolutely understand that direction, Eldar are among the most flexible of E:A armies in that there are a number of distinctly different strategies that can be adopted. The main problem being that each uses different formations, and unless you play at 5000 points the armies do not combine several strategies well.

Given that position, it might be sensible to build a staple set of formations first, and then add formations to support particular strategies - though I understand that you may well end up with a 'bit box' containing half used sprues etc. As you and others have implied, you should aim at

• 2-3 Guardians (possibly with some support and Heavy Weapons),
• Some Rangers (fomations of 4x units are particularly usefull and cheap),
• Some Jet bikes (usefull for supporting fast attacks)
• and finally Aspects (its 'horses for courses' here, as they all have particular strengths and uses)

On the staple formations and strategies presented so far, one I have seen mentioned though not personally played is to pay for a Wraith Gate which is used to replace the Blitz, and use 'naked' guardians as a Blitz defence, with several formations arriving on successive turns through the Wraith Gate. This allows you to spend the points saved on other support formations or upgrades.

In your blisters (depending on what you have got), most support formations etc work well, though ones to avoid / use later are (in no particular order)

• War Walkers (great firepower but horribly brittle)
• Night Spinners (v small formation, weak armour and short ranged)
• Fire Prisms - unless part of a Falcon formation (v small formation, weak armour)
• Cobras - (very specialist, short ranged and need to be used in large numbers)