Been busy trying to find out how to create an Eldar: Exodite army without breaking the bank. I have each one of the unreleased models from GW that they had on mail order in 2003 if anyone knows of a good mold maker.

Here is my humble submission to the community for a prototype fan supplement.
Download Epic:Frontier here


I've been experimenting with different 6mm companies out there trying to find the best combination of bits to create each one of the units needed. I'm a bit behind on my modeling pictures, so I have place holders in the supplement, but I hope to have a quality write up to help people convert their own epic models.

The only way I can host this file right now is via Google Docs, so please let me know if you have any issues trying to download. If anyone gets a play test game in, please PM me. I want to see how the points values balance.

Thanks and good hunting.




Feedback is welcome, and enjoy!

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

A pdf version would be handy, google docs is mangling the formatting. Maybe you can export to pdf and re-upload to google docs?

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Uti possidetis, ita possideatis.
May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!
An online epic force creator: Armyforge

PDF posted. Thanks for the tip.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

First impressions is that, it's incredibly overpowered.

For an Eldar list, there's an large number of 4+ RA saves, often with invulnerable and thick rear armour, making them tougher than land raiders.

Numerous units have better firepower than the falcon or Fire Prism for less points

You have a 45cm move formation, which is core and can be bought for as little as 75 points This in itself is wide open to abuse, but they have skimmer, scout AND sniper as well.

A lot of your units have invulnerable save listed twice. I assume this is just an oversight.

I'm not sure what you mean by a firepower rating of (+1d6) MW. Is that a variable 1+ to 6+ MW attack? If so, what does the Dragon Lord's contact range (+1d3 MW) line mean?

As this is an army list completely seperate from teh craftworld ones, akin to the Imperial guard and Space marine armylists, Why does it have an Avatar, TWO autarchs, AND Beil tan specific sowrdwind aspect warrior formations?

This was all from a 2 minute skim of the list. I'm sure more would pop up on a detailed read.

Nice start, did you write all the text yourself?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I agree with Mike's assessment above plus this is the popcorn (activation army from the dark side). My first thought is to play with 60 individual triceratops in a 3k battle. Just try and stop that BM wave.

Cheers Evil. Yes I did. I was thinking back to the old White Dwarf article 126 from June 1990 when they first appeared in the game. I only remembered a few vague details like Eldar and Human Knights existed on the same Maiden Worlds. The book Machanicum had Knights on Mars, and everything I've seen people writing currently seems to be based on this premise that Imperial Knights exist on their own.

Being grumpy older guy now, I decided to stop complaining about how the game 'used to be' and try my hand at writing a bit. I've been struggling with the idea of why the Eldar would tolerate dirty mon'kai living on their pristine and heavily terraformed worlds long enough that Human and Eldar cultures would start adopting similarities (and use of Knights instead of titans). So I dreamed up a lost colony of Mars Adepts that don't have the resources to build Titan's proper, but knights in their place. Because Knights are "main stream" 40k rule set, I wanted to author a reason why they aren't running around the battlefield with our Imperial Guard armies.

Hopefully, this will get everyone who has Eldar Knights burried in their bits box to break them out and have them see service on the battlefield.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

Hi Mike! Thanks for the fast turn around.



Because the Eldar are riding Dinosaurs, they are based off of the Squiggoth example in Swordwind (50pts LV 4+ RA save, thick rear armor). They come in small formations, so break easily (unlike Land Raiders) without the 'shall know no fear'. Basically, they are the Eldar equivalent of the Feral Ork list, with many of the same drawbacks (no Titan support, no aircraft, no superheavies) and that is made up by increasing the power of the other Dragon units. The knight rules are straight from GW, leaving them as AV, not WE like people have been doing on most experimental lists.



I did lower the points for large multiples of units because before I sat down to author this list, I started converting models to see what I could come up with in the miniature lines available today. It is easy to convert or scratch build one miniature, it is much harder to scratch build a formation of six. I purposely decreased the points value to reflect that you can't just go out and buy six Dragon riders, but assume that you've got to invest time and effort to make the models yourself. Maybe it throws off the math a bit, but if you convert 30 Triceratops models from scratch, I'll LET you win the game.



Roger, good point. This unit was an 'accident'. I bought a bunch of Reaper familiar sprues thinking the dragon models would be a good size for Petradons. Turns out they are too small by a factor of 2. I mounted some Eldar guardian Infantry models on them, then stuck them three to a 20mm x 40mm base and thought "wow, these look like flying cav". Eldar already have something like that called jetbikes, so I was trying to come up with an original unit that could fill the scout/fast attack roll in the army like Rough Riders in IG do, or Trappas in the Feral Ork list does. Maybe I oversteped the creative boundry here. What do you think they should be rated? Just FYI to build one stand of scouts means you have to buy $8.00 in Reaper Miniature part sprues to give you 2 stands (each stand costs $4.00 to build) so I assumed that would limit abuse. Would it be better as a zero to 1 unit like Feral Ork Trappas?



Yup, I'll get on that.



Typo on the Shard Dragons, should be AP6/AT3.
Typo Dragon Lord 'Bite' is identical to the Squigoth Horns attack (contact only, MW +1D3)



Reading Eldar Fluff, the Avatar is always the figure that leads an Eldar force to war. That's how their 'religion' works. They don't follow the Eldar Path, but I thought it still fit with the character of the army.
Autarchs I should clarify could be added to any Exodite Core Formations (addding to the unit stat line)

Beil Tan in the fluff is **always** responds first to any infringement upon the Exodite worlds, as the Exodite worlds are the last hope of the Eldar to rebuild an interstellar empire. Thats why I added the 'Last of the Empire' special rules to give players a chance to boost their numbers in battle too.

That is actually a part of the original Adeptus Titanticus game system I found when I read it again. If you spend a few too many points over the limit, you roll a dice. If you fail, those extra few points will cost you dearly. Something original game we haven't seen in any of the fan lists.

Besides, without titans or aircraft, I wanted to toss something useful in for the restricted 1/3 point value category. Also means people can build an Exodite army, and use some of their existing craftworld models until they get a full force converted up.

Cheers.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

A lot of people on this forum are more than capable of converting or scratch building 30 copies of a custom models, don't base the list around mini availability. Interesting looking document, ill look through it in detail later

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Firstly, I don't want to come across as harsh, I'm being as neutral as possible, but this list has a lot of balance issues.

Basing a list design off of model availability is a bad idea, from a balance perspective at least. Other options are always available.

Triceratops may indeed be roughly equivalent to feral ork squiggoths (ork dinosaurs indeed) but they get 4+ RA, TRA mainly because they're tough orks rather than fragile space elves, and have bolted and welded thick steel plates all over the creatures. They also have much worse weaponry and can only be taken as extras for 200 point minimum warbands is a horde army.

Another unit to look at is the pterosaurs. Most similar to the falcon, but it trades AV status and 15cm range on one of it's weapons for much[/b] better weapons and the ability to take them in micro formations of 2 for 100 pts (falcons are limited to 5 for 250). Their 2 x AT3= lance shots are bad enough on a 50 point unit, but the fact that they have 1BP disrupt AND AA5+ is incredible.

The same follows for almost all the units, far to many weapons, far to much [i]lance, far to many invulnerable saves and far to many micro formations.

And talking of, an illustration of the micro formation popcorn problem (and one spotted by Tim above). 3,000 point army gets 60 Triceratops lancers, all in individual formations. Being init 2+, 10 fail to activate, get a blast marker and break. The other 50 advance 20cm and shoot up to 60cm a total of 100 AT 3+ shots. Even without lance (which they don't get. I hope this isn't an oversight) that 66 average AT hits will most likely destroy every single enemy vehicle, armoured, light or war engine, on the first turn.

In return, your average 10 activation 3k points army will attack and optimistically kill 10 triceratops formations, that being 10 single triceratops.

Considering you've just placed a minimum of 50 blastmarkers on his army (1 for each shooting attack) + 1 for each casualty you caused (a lot with 66 average AT hits), most or all of his army is probably broken and you still have 40 active formations. Assuming you fail to rally any of your broken formation and he rallys all his, you're still at 40 activations to his 10 - however many, and his are all already heavily blastmarkered. You now cover probably at least half of the board with dinosaurs, making it all but impossible for him to advance out of his own half and with your minimum of 40 blastmarkers this turn, you'll be able to re-break every one of his formations anyway.

This would continue into turn three, where if you'd had very bad luck you'd be down to only 20+ active formations, but you'd have re-broken all his formations, probably destroying most of them now due to excess blastmarkers, and you'd be looking at a minimum of a 4-0 turn 3 victory, assuming he'd managed to save his BTS


For more constructive criticism, I'd consider drastically reducing the number of weapons on the units, or toning the weapons down. Then upping the minimum formation size, using the Eldar list as a guide.

For specific examples, I'd limit the pteradon to a single exodite lance each, and create a variant which swaps it for the rocket launcher and loss of lance. Formation would be 5 pterosaur for 200-250 points, with up to 2 being swapped out for the rocket launcher armed ones. Similarly, triceratops down to a single exodite lance, down to 5+ reinforced and loosing TRA and up to a formation size minimum of 5 for 200-250 points.

Another suggestion would be to look at the weapons and special notes themselves. AT3+ is overly good on the exodite lance, especially as you seem to put 2 on everything. Dropping it to AP6+/AT4+ at minimum would be warranted I feel. lance seems to be a very common ability as well, but from what I remember of exodite backstory, I'd guess it would be their shock lances etc, so should be confined to only CC attacks rather than everything including the shooting attacks.

The Various (robo) knights look OK and would make a good titan substitute for the list.

Coming back to the allies, the Avatar isn't such a fixture of Eldar that he appears at every battle and is a craftworld specific thing. He shouldn't be here. Your list also has twice the number of autarch's as the craftworld ones, and how does 2 supreme commanders work in one army anyway? Again, if you insist on having craftworld alied formations, they should at least be more limited than in the core list(s). Either the aspect troupe from the non Bel Tan lists, or an even smaller 4 aspect warrior/1 exarch formation

You do know there are some good Exodite proxies out there: vis.

http://www.microworldgames.com/product_ ... cts_id=162

Point taken. I did draft this Suppliment with the idea that you would be having to buy 1 Dragon Knight off of Ebay for $40.00 USD (25 GBP for you tea drinkers) and allowing you to field them one at a time as they entered your collection.

Agreed. My itention was pure, but I did not factor in the possibility of abuse. I'll roll it back to my original minimum formation sizes of 3 and increase points to equivalent Eldar unit levels in version 0.3.

Soon as I can get a 3000 point force built and playtested, I'll solidify things a bit. Anyone that actually gets a game on the table, please PM me and let me know your experience.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

Ah yes, I actually bought several of each type. The Triceratops model you have right there is actually a little bit bigger than an IG rough rider, and fits on a 20mm x 20mm infantry base very well. The original GW Triceratops model fits on a 20mm x 40mm and has a gun that is larger than the old plastic laser weapons platforms that looks like a twin pulsar type of weapon with 2 gunners, 1 on each side. The microworld triceratops is actually more suited for a Dragon Knight mounted model if you mount a fantasy spearman figure on the back. The gun is much too small to match the original style. I'll get some photos up in the next week or so for comparison.

Sadly, the plastic toy Triceratops dinos you buy at the store run about 10mm too long and 5 mm too tall, so they look funny next to the original lacking detail. I haven't purchased the GW Stegadon models yet, so if anyone has both the Exodite and the Stegadon model please let me know. I'm currently shaving down plastic Triceratops dinos from Safari LTD because they are higher detail, smaller sized, but they will take a lot of work to get into shape for the game board.

For you converters out there just know that generic drug store toy plastic Dinos are too large compared to the real Exodites by about 25% size. Reaper familiars are about 50% too small, but that is how I created the scout units. They mount 3 to a cav base very well like Jet Bikes.

I'll see if I can get some info up on the Modeling section at the end of the supplement with all the research and models I've bought trying to find a good match to the originals.

Also, the original Exodite Triceratops has multiple spikes that run on the edge and face of the model and a pair of horns near the ears, making it not a true Triceratops design. If you are casting, it's a nightmare to get that detail sans bubbles FYI.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

No worries. I'm just glad to have so much interest in the list. It is a very very very rough working copy, and my first stab at anything so ambitious. The discussion is appreciated, and I hope to work this into something that can join the ranks some day as an accepted Net EA list. I never expected to be perfect jumping out the gate.

Shifting gears: You never discussed the new Exodite universal rules. The 'World Spirit' was an attempt on my part to fill the complete lack of AA ability in the army, and give Exodites an original unit that just isn't another big Dino like the Orkisaurs. Doing a quick look at the list, I realized that the dinos would be bombed back into the stone age by fliers, and needed something to counteract. Feral Orks have Wierdboyz AA MW, Exodites got 'World Spirit'.

Again, I missed some of the original Adeptus Titanticus (circa 1989) rules, like overspending points. 'Last of the Eldar Empire' was another original idea in EA. I can say from memories of playing in the 1990s that it was fun to sometimes just overbuy a big unit and see if you can pull off a 6. Most folks go with small numbers of points over though, making it a 'neat' rule IMHO.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0

Agreed. I didn't foresee this.

I expected that anyone running up against something like this would be countered with Aircraft formations that could fly in unopposed and break 6 formations a turn just taking a shot at them, plus artillery formations laying waste to your back board crowding of 60 triceratops as blast templates route half of them off the table. That’s what I would do to counter 60 triceratops cheese.

Realistically, you are completely correct, this is much to open for abuse and I will revise.

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Dan B.
San Diego Epic Armageddon Coordinator
Author Army Book Epic: Frontiers 1.0