It's all in the title.

I am about to start an Ulthwe painting project, and was wondering what people thought of the two lists, and which had preference.

On paper, Chroma's work looks really ingenuous and original.

What is your experience and thoughts?

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Some playtesters have worked on both lists over the years.

I personally prefer the EUK version for a number of reasons:

1) 1+ activating Guardians are OTT IMO, especially when combined with Aspects and Warlock titans. 3 activations with no activation roll neccessary is too much for me.

2) It's very easy to popcorn NetEA Ulthwe with small Aspect units etc. I also feel that the EUK one forces more hard decisions on the player when selecting an army and it's more rewarding when you find something that works well for you. Additionally it's simpler to put a list together.

3) I really hate NetEA Fire Prisms. Sorry, there it is, I understand why they changed them, I just don't like the unit.

4) List stability and reliability of updates. All the lists are rigourously playtested by actually taking part in tournaments and the playtesters are of known quality to the commitee members, so you get reliable and regular playtesting feedback for the annual reviews. Their methodology and the consequent results work for me and the way I think/work.

5) All of my club, including myself attend EUK tournaments on a fairly regular basis, so we generally play by their rules to stay in practice at competing against their lists and using our own (And still get trounced, lol!)

So that's it for me in a nutshell. The NetEA list does have some good points too. It is more dynamic and doesn't feel quite so much like a spin off list to name 2 but i just like the EUK one more.

It's funny, that's actually one of the selling points of the Net EA Eldar for me

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Both are pretty cool.

EUK - Stupidly awesome AA.
NetEA - Doesn't look 20 years old, stupidly awesome AT.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Whilst I know that the original Swordwind stats had AA which apparently was contrary to the 'fluff', for me, this capability made up for a weaker AT capability than the Falcon, and the highly brittle nature of the formation. This is yet another case where the 40K stats and 'fluff' do not translate well into E:A.

IMO the main issue with the E:A unit is the way that both sets of stats have been combined on the single weapon, where a simple OR could have been used to separate the ground and AA ranges and capabilities eg

Prism Cannon . . . . . 75cm . . AP4+ / AT4+ . . . Lance
. . . . . . . . . . . . .OR 60cm . . AA5+ . . . . . . . . . Lance

As it is, IMO the NetEA stats without AA are bland, whilst the E-UK stats with AA are slightly OTT.

In general I prefer the NetEA stats personally, as they do have a nice specialised AT role, and being able to buy them in 5's rather than 3's makes them a little less brittle.

Mind you I voted for the EUK list in this vote, as I think in toto it's the better list.
NetEA Fire Prisms in the EUK list would be perfect, yup.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Would you mind stating why you think so?

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

DO you not think the expense per unit and the brittle nature of 3 unit fms makes up for the better stats though?

Also, the range is a big contributing factor for me. Even without AA, EUK FPs are better for me than the NetEA ones because of the extra 15cm of range which I find much more useful than the better AT value.

I always preferred the original Swordwind stats, and while sympathetic to the intentions in 2008, was never happy with the results. I am not sure we should reduce the formation cost to 225 even if there was a desire to do so, which leaves the unit at ~83 each. As Falcons are ~62 points each, the Prisms need an edge which is given by lance, the range and AA.

The 75cm range on the AT capability is necessary as Stomp says, though less so for AA, hence my suggestion. And this allows the Prisms to hide better, which compensates for the brittleness of the formation.

That said, you do need to have Falcon / Firestorm formations as well to provide the close defence of the Prisms (and other formations) - isolated formations of Prisms are vulnerable to air assault.

The other point is that increasing the formation sizes causes its own problems, which is one of the reasons why the AA capability was dropped in the first place together with reducing the range on the main weaponry. But doing this reduces the effectiveness of the formation to the point where Falcons are a much better choice (IMO anyway).