Game 1 with Eldar

I got my first game with Eldar in this week. It was a team game; I took 1,000 points of Eldar and paired with 1,000 points of Tyranids. Our opponents were Eldar and Necrons. The game was Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment.

My list was designed to be fast and relatively aggressive, while trying out units that I like.

Farseer w/ singing spear, Guide, Prescience, Mind War

9 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers, shuriken cannon

9 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers, shuriken cannon

6 Rangers

10 Warp Spiders w/ exarch w/ twin-linked Death Spinners, fast shot, marksman's eye

5 Swooping Hawks

Here's our enemy. 7 Warp Spiders and 2 Nightscythes are in reserve. The Necron army packs way too much S7 firepower.

Here's us. Warp Spiders and Ymgarl Stealers are in reserve.

This isn't really a battle report so much as some lessons learned in my first game.

1) Wave Serpents are just as incredible on the table as they are on paper. My two were up against a Wave Serpent with bright lances and two Fire Prisms, and they got to fire first, before I could move to get a jink save. My Serpents survived and blasted apart Fire Prism for First Blood.  One of my Serpents was destroyed by the torrent of Necron firepower (really, not many tanks could survive that), and my second was able to join with my Warp Spiders and destroy the enemy Wave Serpent. They're great gunships, and the scatter laser twin-linking the Serpent Shield was massive.

My Wave Serpents (the grey ones. I am shamed!) combine their fire to kill the Fire Prism (white).

2) Warp Spiders are fast, and the generally kill what they hit. I had some awful luck firing at flyers, even when Guided, but otherwise they did their jobs really well. My opponent's were also pretty nasty, but they were charged by some Termagants which inexplicably killed 6 of the 7. That was a really lucky break for us.

3) The Swooping Hawks were pretty awesome for 80 points. They put out a ton of fire, albeit S3, as well as their blast, and they're so mobile they can hit any target they want. The key is to keep them out of trouble. Mine killed 6 Dire Avengers when they dropped first, but I then decided to hit Necron Immortals on my next drop. They inflicted a respectable 9 wounds, but only 1 Immortal was killed after saves and Resurrection Protocols. In return, the S5 AP4 weapons of the Necrons casually annihilated the Swooping Hawks. They need to target vulnerable units and never expose themselves to serious danger.

4) The Dire Avengers didn't do much, but there wasn't much infantry for them to target in this battle.  They did do a number on enemy Dire Avengers.

There were 10 Dire Avengers next to that green Wave Serpent, but they were wiped out by my Hawks and Avengers.

5) I didn't take any Fire Prisms, but my enemy took two so I wanted to comment on them. They really are massively flexible. He mainly used the S9 Lance shot to target tanks and monstrous creatures, but the AP3 blast did some serious damage to my Warp Spiders. They've got an answer for any target and their firepower complements the Wave Serpent's very nicely. Unfortunately, they're just as survivable as the Wave Serpent. In a shooting match between the two, the Wave Serpent had the advantage because of the high number of shots and the ability to ignore the Fire Prism's Jink save.

Overall, I really enjoyed the new Eldar, and I think my Eldar opponent did as well. We were trying to help each other learn the new book, so we were constantly reminding each other of all the new rules. I need to get used to casting powers before I do anything else in my turn. I don't feel like I made very good use of Battle Focus, so I'll have to keep that in mind. All of the Eldar units except for the Rangers seem capable of doing very respectable damage, but they die extremely easily. Not that I'm complaining; that's as it should be.

In case you're wondering, the game ended up as a 13 vs 13 tie. Three Annihilation Barges with two Nightscythes are really hard to kill, but a squad of Ymgarl Genestealers in the right place is a seriously dangerous thing.