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Yeah, winged dudes are great for jump troops of any kind. But a bike adds toughness, so they should be riding something. I don't care WHAT they're riding, so long as they're mounted up. They could be pegasus knights or warhawk riders for all I care.

The added toughness makes the Eldar T4. Which is why a marine could actually do a stand in for them. Since a Marine is also T4.

I don't mind minor counts as armies. My friend has Chaos that he runs as SW (TWC are chaos knights from WHFB w/ marine upper bodies) but thats the most converted it is.

However something major like this would drive me nuts.

I have played against a few WYSIWYG armies in my day, and this one would require constant explanation. The main problem for generals would be to build a strategy around minis that you need to understand. If the entire field is covered in 'jump packs' and there is not much of a clear distinction, you may end up winning siply because your opponent becomes confused.

Also, your fluff idea is ace. But the way you are attempting to pull it off misses the mark. I do not understand your 'mutations'. If you look at the actual BA midels, the winged backpacks are clearly not organic enough. Also, for this, you may wanna go the extra distance and get models from other armies in GW range to represent your ideas. Eg. Seraphim (WH) with feathered wings, instead of jump packs.

Finally, I just dont see how you would walk away from a tournament with anything close to full scores for this sort of army as you will inevitably annoy quite a few people with it.

Well that's the thing Avatarform. I'd be converting them to come out of the actual armor. there would be no jump pack. Though there would be a standard backpack since that is the power armors power supply. The idea of Seraphim is a pretty good one. The only problem with the Seraphim is the sever lack of poses and the difference in scale for finding other models that I can kitbash with them to get the look across the army.

I'm not actually surprised at the voting. I figured 1/3ish would say hell no but I am surprised that very few people posting think it's a neat idea. Personally I think different armies are totally worth the extra thought. To see something that doesn't look like just another army is a gem and normally will get auto-full soft scores for me (including my "best" votes) simply because it's different. And if it beats me it's all the cooler. Oh well Different strokes for different folks.

Hey Hulksmash, most of what people seem to be having a problem with is that in an all substitution army it is very difficult to tell, at a glance, which units are which, so using normal tactics becomes more difficult. Since you seem to really like the idea of your army (I think it is pretty spiffy as well, BTW) then come up with some ways to make it very simple for your opponents to identify your units.

I have a few suggestions:
1) Possibly model your army as fighting the space elfs, with slain eldar of the appropriate type lying dead on the bases of your winged marines. If you go with the flying bases you should have lots of room that you need to take up anyway.
2) Go waaay overboard on squad markings of all types. Colored helmets and/or pauldrons, different types of wings for different units (there are lots to choose from), big banners or streamers in addition to any standards you might have.
3) Flying servo skulls/cherubim/daemons trailing banners that say "This is a shining spears squad!" on tiny bases.

I really like the 3rd one!

If you really want to use angelic blood angel models, why not run a Blood Angels army but just use wings instead of jump packs? That solves all your problems, is mobile, and hits hard.

whitedragon wrote:If you really want to use angelic blood angel models, why not run a Blood Angels army but just use wings instead of jump packs? That solves all your problems, is mobile, and hits hard.

This would be a cool army.

so.... what's the decision? i think the poll has enough votes to give you an idea of what level of discomfort/flak you'd encounter.

I think I'm gonna do it. I'm just not a fan of the Eldar Jetbikes. I got a Shining Spear squad and found an easy way to convert all the riders to newer guardians and such but I just don't think I'll enjoy painting it. Not to mention the enormous price tag attached to it.

So I think I'm gonna convert up a few test models and see what happens.

Hulksmash wrote:I think I'm gonna do it. I'm just not a fan of the Eldar Jetbikes. I got a Shining Spear squad and found an easy way to convert all the riders to newer guardians and such but I just don't think I'll enjoy painting it. Not to mention the enormous price tag attached to it.

So I think I'm gonna convert up a few test models and see what happens.

Eldar riding cold ones make really nice jetbike counts as....I'm working on some myself. Just do a google search for Eldar Exodites and you'd be amazed at what you find. That's how I got around my "I hate Jetbike Models" stigma. Hell, the Dark Elf armored riders aren't really all that spiky either, and being plastic are easy to convert into guardians/warlocks/whatever. They even look good with just a guardian head stuck on there.

Actually an excellent suggestion. I've taken a look around the internet and I might pick up a box of COK's tomorrow and give a conversion a try. It turns out it'd be hella cheaper than an all bike army. And look cooler and more menacing.....

Hulksmash wrote:Actually an excellent suggestion. I've taken a look around the internet and I might pick up a box of COK's tomorrow and give a conversion a try. It turns out it'd be hella cheaper than an all bike army. And look cooler and more menacing.....

Glad I could help.

Now the only question is would people think it's cool that "jetbike" cold ones don't have wings. Cause mini-drakes don't look so good to me but a dino Cav army would be pretty sweet

I voted no, strangely.

I'm a HUGE fan of counts-as armies. A lot of my ones are counts-as to one degree or another.

However, the absolute most important thing IMO is to make them count as the closest thing to the models.

- You're doing an army of Space Marines
- They have 'Angelic Wings'
- We all know that, in every other situation in the game, wings count as Jump Packs.
- This should be using Blood Angels rules

If you used BA for the army, there would be absolutely no problems. But by using it as an Eldar army you make it really confusing for anyone to play you!

Why do YOUR guys with wings have completely different rules from anyone else's guys with wings?

In the same vein, though your Daemon army seems cool, the models scream 'counts-as Necron' to me rather than 'counts-as Daemon'


EDIT (to clarify)

I think the model conversions are great ideas, and I think you should make the army either way. I just think it's deliberately confusing to have an army of 'Winged Space Marines which count-as Eldar Jetbikes' when there are already published rules for an army of Winged Space Marines!

I like the idea, and I'd have no problem playing you. The custom army list sounds like a good idea.

Something else you could do is write what the model is supposed to represent on the base in some manner, as well as making sure the units you end up using look quite different from one another.

crap.... dakka just ate my long post. oh well, here's the summary. i like this conversion as it follows the fluff, looks cool, and IS NOT problematic. as long as you use the correct jetbike bases, it's legal RAW-wise and still fluffy (you've got elves riding stuff counting as space elves riding modern stuff). you could even model the vehicle mounted weapons as flame breath using the bolter muzzle blast bits someone sells on the internet (with bigger blasts as the shuriken cannon squad upgrade). flying isn't a problem as you can say the powerful hind legs simply allow the beast to jump over intervening terrain instead of actually flying over it. i'd be hard pressed to find a player (or tourny organizer) that would bat an eyelash on this idea.

So 60mm plastic bases or 40mm? Since bikes can come on the 25mm or the 60mm flying bases which would be appopriate? I'm asking because I'm going to have to order them and would prefer to use the 40's so the bases don't look to empty but I'm open to suggestions.

Hulksmash wrote:So 60mm plastic bases or 40mm? Since bikes can come on the 25mm or the 60mm flying bases which would be appopriate? I'm asking because I'm going to have to order them and would prefer to use the 40's so the bases don't look to empty but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm having the same question myself, although there are alot of people at my LGS that have jetbikes magnetized to 40mm bases rather than flying stands.

Hulksmash wrote:So 60mm plastic bases or 40mm? Since bikes can come on the 25mm or the 60mm flying bases which would be appopriate? I'm asking because I'm going to have to order them and would prefer to use the 40's so the bases don't look to empty but I'm open to suggestions.

to be honest, i'd buy a bunch of the clear bases and use them but obviously without the stems. in the pic below, it looks like GW uses the smaller flight bases for jet bikes and the big ones for vypers (in another pic). on another, they use the big ones for all jet bikes.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat380004&categoryId=400035§ion=&pIndex=5&aId=1100013&start=6

since the small flight bases are bigger than the 25mm yet smaller than 40mm, i'd be fine with the 40mm ones though.

Bikes may come with no base, or cave bases, or the new oval ones, but I haven't seen eldar jetbikes use those. If that is what these are mean't to represent, then you should absolutely use the correct size bases. It will also help as a reminder to opponints as to what the models are, which is good as this is a very confusing army to play in the first place.

Use the clear bases that the current eldar jetbikes come with.

I think the 40mm is the perfect size personally for them. Since I don't expect a lot of people to get bent out of shape about them I think that's what I'll go with. If anything it makes them more prone to being hit with blast templates (Since the hole has to go over a model and the larger bases would result in only 1 hit when spread correctly) and doesn't confer an advantage that I can see.

@Mikhaila

It's looking like I'm swinging to an exodite themed "jetbike" army. So at least the confusion factor should be down a little. And as was previously mentioned Jetbikes have 2 different base sizes they come with depending on when you bought them. Some are the 60mm. Some are the 25mm. A 40mm feels like a nice compromise.

lol Hulk whatever you decide post on Dakka as im confused as hell to what these dudes would even look like but i say go for it as 90% of my chaos army is converted and semi count as(or will be). The biggest thing with tournaments is making sure its ok with the to and you explain it to the opponent (i personaly like the pistured army list and i think any army that uses massive wound alocation on multi wound models should have to use a little check list makes it much easier then lil counters that can get nudged when moving the models and everything

whatever you do good luck doing it

If you do exodites, you could mount eldar on little winged dragons.)

@Mikhaila

Little winged dragon riding eldar look a little silly. And the DE cold ones are just so plain evil and cool looking that I don't wanna take away from them by giving them wings.

Now some of the tanks will be dragons, some will be stegadons, and carnosaurs will make dandy wraithlords/warwalkers (not sure which yet). But that's after I build up a really sweet looking count-as exodite jetbike army.

Hulksmash wrote:@Mikhaila

Little winged dragon riding eldar look a little silly. And the DE cold ones are just so plain evil and cool looking that I don't wanna take away from them by giving them wings.

Now some of the tanks will be dragons, some will be stegadons, and carnosaurs will make dandy wraithlords/warwalkers (not sure which yet). But that's after I build up a really sweet looking count-as exodite jetbike army.

I was going to use Sanguinary Guard wings with a few eldary bits to try to make the cold ones look like they were able to fly (Mechanically of course) but the wings are too small. Instead I may find a way to mount jetbike engines and winglets behind the saddle. It would even provide a convenient place to mount shurican catapults and the like too, but I don't want them to look too cluttered.

Don't forget to experiment with mixing dark elf cold one torso's and eldar torso's, and Corsairs could work really well for infantry. Actually the cloaks would work really well too.

I'm probably gonna stick with "super" cold ones that don't have any flying bitz. I don't really like the asthetic. But Eldar riding vicious predators is cool to me.

Yeah, I've already started designing my infantry. Guardians will be made using a combo of Guardian and Glade Guard bitz and my Dire Avengers will be a combo of DA and Corsair bitz. Militia vs. Standard military. Also saw some great conversions using the torso's of shining spears to make "Knight" infantry for counts-as scorpions or banshees.

Hulk, check my gallery for some ideas for mounted eldar, along with the blogspot Path of the Outcast. I base mine on 40mm's at the consent of my local opponents, but eldar jetbikes normally come on either 30mm or 60mm bases. Good luck and post a blog!

Can't find the blogspot but I'd already seen your Blog in the P&M section. I do like the way you did the Shining Spears and was already doing something similar. All of my "jetbikes" will be mounted on DE Cold Ones (they look more menacing). Also to represent the twin-linked shuriken catapults on the standard guardian jetbikes I'll be using the DA guns and shoulder targeter on Guardian bodies. I may just wind up modeling them all on 60mm to avoid all problems. I've got a test model done up for my Shining Spear. I'll be working up a Guardian and Warlock models after this weekend (assuming I win the local RTT since then I can pick up some extra boxes I need)