Ok, so I've got the pointy ears (who I hate) and Matt should be taking Imperial Guard (though may switch to Orks).

The idea is to take an army made up of stuff only the normal eldar can get and play with strat 5. Well and the 4 strong swooping hawks as I'm only human.

Note I would actually make this more Ulthwe to increase the power setting, this is just too see the effect of strat 5 on such a fragile army!

000 Avatar
350 Guardians in Waveserpents (BTS)
250 Guardians, SC, Heavy weapons
150 Guardians, heavy weapons
150 Guardians
200 Bikes (Wipers)
200 Bikes (Jets)
250 Falcons, 2 flak
175 Nightspinner
175 Swooping Hawks
100 Rangers
300 Fighters
300 Dragonship
200 Vampire
200 Vampire
3000

Still not going to take the spear Maybe it should be seer council and spear of khaine as one option?

The dragonship is somewhat random as I know there are a host of better options (up to 2 activations on the ground, more fighters etc) but it gives some different options with the vampires and can mess up opponent battleplans.

Imperial Guard
700 Lemon Russ + Hydra
625 SC + Hydra + Snipers
550 Shadowswords + Hydra
250 Manticores
150 Hydra
150 Rough Riders
100 Sentinels
100 Sentinels
250 Warhound
150 Thunderbolts

During deployment I first started to deploy without doing my spaceship, so simply opted for lasers. Which was a shame as I was going to put the first of 3 templates smack bang in the middle of the road I also had in my head that nightspinners were range 60. They of course aren't.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Turn 1 was pretty disastrous, not helped by the Eldar dice who remained below average the whole game (know I know how it feels to not have Orks on Vassal!).

Boyd by my use of thunderhawks as proxies I attempted to wild weasel the Hydra with a Vampire full of guardians. I was promptly shot down. Clearly I developed an unhealthy obsession with it as later the falcons attempted to shoot it, promptly failing 3 of their dangerous terrain tests.

Something inside me snapped and the army charged into an assaulting position facing off against the

To help matters nothing rallied. Still I had the Guardians in position behind the SC ready to summon the avatar, then of course it would deal with the SHT's with the guardian supporting fire, some bikes would come in, kill the hydra and consolidate to support and the guardians would then have an even chance of getting the SC I reckoned. In retrospect maybe the avatar should have been set to attack the SC instead of the SHT.

But it was all moot because...

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

The Imperial Guard won the initiative.

A couple of dead Guardian formations later the attack commenced with the hasty plan by me (Hawks get roughriders screening the SHTs who they were intermingled with, bikes boucing in, Avatar doing some sort of clip) was completely abandoned by an irrational desire to kill the manticores. The Avatar instead charged, losing 2 dc to 2 first strike attacks, losing the combat and that was the good part of the turn!

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Still the Eldar wished to be sent to the spirit stones after some silly charges so manoeuvred to have another go turn 3.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Sadly the Swooping hawks with vampire support failed to kil the shadowswords (I had +2 I tell you!) and various moves resulted in effectively the turn 3 win hanging on the SC formation activation on a 3+ with a re-roll. They did and it was (take and hold, BTS) 2-1 (Blitz) to the Guard.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

The Dragonship didn't do anything?

While fun, the Guardian "Horde", even with Ulthwé's advantages, is still pretty fragile.

Any other thoughts?

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Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Sorry, yes it killed a shadowsword first activation, hence me trying to get the hydra to break the formation.


Well hard to assess really since when I needed strat 5 it failed miserably!

I think my main conclusion was playing Eldar after 3?, maybe more, years and using marine proxies may have led to me racial tactics inappropriate to the army at hand. Warg.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

well there were quite a few, "hey Chris, remember that's a Vyper not an Attack Bike" moments. Very fun game though (apart from the odd "guardians in a wood get a cover save in assault" moments - the dog and squirrel shooting at each other with guns around a tree analogy didn't help either!) and interesting to both play IG and against Eldar.

Admittedly it was an Eldar I'd never seen before, some sort of cross between Marines and Orks (I did say to Chris that he seemed like an Orkish player to which he replied "well that was the army I won X tournament with last yeat"). It was a bit like watching waves break against rocks, but there were some surprisingly effective tactics - the Swooping Hawks were easily the stars of the Eldar side, taking out a Shadowsword (tut tut on not taking a Exarch Chris) and easily wiping out the somewhat ineffective Manticores. Certainly a very aggressive take on Eldar which nearly succeeded - if Chris had made better use of Hit and Run tactics ("very girly" he said, I think) I would have been in a lot more trouble.

My fave unit - Rough Riders. For 125pts they're a bargain, took out a Guardian formation (the upgunned squirrels behind trees) then forced an intermingling with the SHTs and Avatar, taking off 2DC in the process.

Plus I learnt more about the rules in 1 game with Chris than I have in the last 6mths playing Epic

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numquam culum es

150 points for the roughriders (that version, the 1 attack only are 125) And sadly didn't win overall as few people accept that spraying some of the army black and drybrushing silver is a proper paint job (ran out of time again!).

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

That's a good paint job.

Well yes, I think it has highlighting, blacklining and all sorts! Plus a bowel burner is basically a big hunk of metal, why need other colours?

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x