I'm a big fan of the idea of a grav-tank army, but obviously there aren't many eldar tanks available:

Falcon chassis:
Falcon – IFV/gunship
Fire Prism – tank hunter
Firestorm – AA

Modified falcon chassis 1:
Night Spinner – mid-range artillery

Modified falcon chassis 2:
Wave Serpent – APC

I figure, if I want to convince other people that a grav-tank themed army needs additional unit choices, I have to come up with tanks that don’t compete for the same roles as those already available. Looking at the roles of each of these tanks, it’s clear that there are a few roles that are not covered by the available units. Of course, background dictates some of the missing roles are meant to be left out, to give the Eldar a certain flavor.

So, that means that, while a new Eldar tanks has to has to fill a role that isn’t already performed by another tank unit, it cannot fill a role considered to be un-eldary. In addition, any new tank ought to be easily converted or already available, because new models are unlikely (sort of).

Here are two ideas that I think meet all three conditions:

Rending Hammer – short range artillery
replaces monofilament guns on the Night Spinner with vibro cannons.
stats same as Night Spinner, except weapon is 30cm BP2 disrupt, ignore cover, lance (no indirect fire)
maybe improved FF ability so that it can also fill the role of close support tank
available to same formations as the night spinner

Warp Ghost – command/close support tank
Uses command falcon model from E:40k
stats similar to falcon, but replaces all range weapon with a single 15cm BP2 disrupt, ignore cover
improved FF ability (either FF 3+ or maybe extra attack +1 or +2), and farseer
available as a 0-1 upgrade to falcon formations (in lieu of farseers being available anywhere else in the list)

So, how’s my logic? I think both of these could easily round out the grav-tank list without being too difficult for existing Eldar players to collect/convert.

By the way, here is a concept for the Rending Hammer turret:

cool graphic mock up!

As to the models - I can't imagine taking the Warp Ghost as a single model in a Falcon formation as the range discrepancy is so huge, 45cm vs. 15cm would result in that weapon rarely being used and essentially being a downgrade for the formation.

The Rendering Hammer (do you mean Rending? as rendering is a similar process to plastering, which I don't think is what you're after?) sounds awesome, but I can't imagine how it would be costed. A formation of 3 would have better fire power than a Cobra by a huge amount (6BP disrupt ignore cover lance is vicious   ) at a slight decrease in survivability, perhaps balanced out by faster movement - 35cm vs. 25cm. So costing would be something like 300-400pts, which is a lot for a fm that is unlikely to survive very long. 1BP disrupt ignore cover (no lance) would be one option though, which would bring it more into line with the Night Spinner, and make it easier to cost.

Neat ideas though! Plus I have so many spare vibro cannons that conversions would not be hard

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The 'Rendering Hammer' idea has been explored before, albeit In NetEpic;
It was/is called a 'Unicorn', and is currently an optional unit
(eg 'Needs opponents agreement to field').
The Mod was a MKI Falcon w/a MKI Vibro Cannon attached to the stern 'bridge'.
Unicorn* 25 cm 3+ +2 Vibro Cannon 75 cm Line Varies Varies Skimmer, Special


I'm not sure I see the role of the Warp Ghost,
but I may not be understanding its abilities....

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All the EoV's are grav tanks as well.

Rending Hammer - I'm not sure what the purpose of it is in terms of battlefield role.  Why do you need a short-range arty unit?

Warp Ghost - A command Falcon is an okay idea.  I'm not sure about the choice of armament, though, as others pointed out.  Is that supposed to be some sort of psychic power?  In terms of abilities matching the rest of the formation it would fit a lot better with Guardians in Wave Serpents - short range and primarily FF.

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bah, yes, I meant Rending, not rendering, although my mock up is a rendering.

As for the name unicorn, I don't think that fits the naming convention followed by the Eldar. Imperials usually use mythical beasts to name things, whereas Eldar use real animals (though ones with mythical meanings), or adjective-noun pairs. I tried to pick a name that could sort-of indicate the weapon's ability and also refer to Eldar mythology.

When the Eldar god of the forge Vaul struck his anvil with his hammer, the sky would crack and the ground would be rent assunder. At least, that's what I heard.

And the warp ghost - well, the fact is I have 6 or 7 of the E:40k command falcons, and they don't really have a good use in E:A, so let's give them one. I figure, as a cheap way of adding farseer to a falcon formation, they'd be useful enough; the weapon is just secondary. Also, I don't mean for them to replace a falcon, I meant that you could add 1 to an existing formation.

same reason that the Cobra has a role I guess. Be pretty awesome for flushing infantry out of cover. Plus I love the whole vibro cannon thing (wasn't there a similar tank in C&C?).

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If you want to have a command Falcon, why not simply down gun an existing Falcon (to either 1x 45cm AT4+ or 2x 45cm AT5+) and add Farseer? One should balance the other out.

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I imagine that the short-range artillery tank would be used the same way that SM players use land speeders now. You activate the hammers, and move them up to within 15cm of a target formation and lay on blast markers. Then, you retain with an assault formation to engage the target formation with the hammers in support position. That why I suggested maybe giving the Rending Hammers an improved FF ability, to encourage such tactics.

Seems pretty eldary to me, fast, hard hitting, but fragile and subject to the fickle hand of fate.

As for the warp ghost, I'm not married to the stats (it is supposed to represent a buffed-up Eldritch Storm psychic power), but I do think that since we have this distinctive model, let's do something with it in the tank list. Also, I think there is some merit to the idea of trying to reduce the need for infantry in this list, which having a farseer tank would work toward.

Well, mainly because the model doesn't have any apparent weapon on it. Sure, I guess you could say that the psychic power it uses just happens to have the same stats as a scatter laser (and I would be happy with that, really) - but I was trying to think outside the box.

So, then, I'd be interested in what stats everyone thinks would be good for the command falcon model.

Isn`t "hammer" a way to unsubtle name for Eldar? How about "Wave Slicer"?

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why not then give a similar stat weapon to the command tank, but add something extra like disrupt or ignore cover to represent the Eldritch Storm? I.e. 1x (or 2x) 45cm AT4+ disrupt or IC or even MW4+ disrupt/IC. I don't think a single Farseer could conjure the same area affect that a Cobra could, for example.

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I do like these concepts. I also own some of these command tanks and I did use them for the falcons that transported the farseers just do distuingish them from the others. It would be cool to have some different stats for them. But I also think, that they fit much better in a formation of Black Guardians with Serpents and Falcons for the Farseers (At least, that is what I use the models for). But it always feels odd that they shoot 45cm. So short ranged stats would fit and in a formation of Black Guardians in Serpents would fit quite nicely. But for Yme-Loc, I too think, that a version with 45cm would fit better. A possibility would be to make the command tank just an upgrade option, as others have mentioned.

Another Idea would be to make them RA to differentiate them. Or that they grant an invulnerable save to the whole formation symbolising their farseeing powers? Or, something like the warlock power that gives cover to the whole formation? So we would circumvent the need für 45cm range weapons that are obviously not on the model.

Just my ideas from the top of my head.

By the way, here's a picture of the Command Falcon model that I was talking about.

As you can see, it has no turret weapon barrels, which is why I think it would be better if it didn't necessarily have the same weapon stats as a normal falcon.

What if it had a 30cm BP2 disrupt, ignore cover attack as its only ranged weapon? Better than 15cm, and not overpowered, plus it could be useful at the same range as the scatter lasers are on the normal falcons (and would be targeting mostly the same type of targets - infantry.

Upgrade one Falcon in the warhost to replace farseer for ~+50 Pts?

Falcon Farseer AV 35cm 4+ 6+ 3+

Scatter Laser 30cm AP5+/AT5+
(Psychic Name) Blast Power 30cm 3x MW5+, Sniper, Ignore Cover, Disrupt
Or ("   ") Focus Power 45cm MW4+, TK (D3), Sniper, Disrupt

Notes: Farsight, Commander, Farseer may use either but NOT both Psychic variants a turn.

This assuming the farseer in the warhost is infantry riding along and not its own falcon already. I thought it would be fluffy for the farseer have choice in psychic powers a turn and the falcon is design to enhance its abilities to show up in a epic game.

Just some thoughts...  

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Well, I'm not sure it needs to have that much power (and I'm generally against MW creep).

If the farseer falcon upgrade was something like:

then it could have no ranged weapon at all and still be useful, just by being an additional warm body in the formation (not to mention the farsight ability).

If people feel that a ranged weapon is necessary, we could give it a token ranged attack at 30 or 45cm (something like 1 x AP5/AT6 sniper disrupt), that would allow you to prevent a better unit in the formation from being suppressed, but not really overpowering the new unit.

But whatever, my ultimate goal here is to get a few more tank variants into the Yme-loc list, so I'd take pretty much anything.

Anyone else have an idea of what else could be fitted to a falcon or night spinner chassis to make a cool but not overpowered tank for the eldar?