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Hello, I'm new to 40k and I just bought a bunch of miniatures from a guy, so this is my first army attempt out of what I got from the guy. Please ignore the point value as it is from a 4th edition codex I got with the miniatures, this is just asking if I'm on the right track, or I'm way off. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks in advance for any feedback! - Josh
HQ's
1x Autarch with scorpion chainsword and fusion gun
1x Farseer with witchblade upgrade to singing spear
Elites
6x fire dragons one with a fire pike
1x Harlequin troupe ( made of 5 harlequins, 1 death jester, 1 shadowseer, and 1 troupe leader
Troops
5x dire avengers one with dire sword and shimmer shield
10x rangers
12x guardians with a heavy weapon platform with a bright lance
Fast Attack
5x warp spiders one with double death spinners
heavy support
2x War walkers one with a scatter laser and star cannon, the other with a bright lance and a missile launcher
1x wave serpent with holofields
1x fire prisim with holofields

Welcome to Dakka, 40k, and the Eldar.

I just dabble in elves, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Where are the HQs going? What are they doing? They are both on foot, which is not bad for the farseer (although bikes are hot right now) is kinda meh for the autarch. He strikes me as a bare-bones, fill the slot but don’t be useless HQ. Generalist, in a game/army that promotes specialization. You can toss him in a transport with a squad and he should do OK.

I’m going to assume the Dragons get the Wave Serpent. They are short range, and will get shot up before they get to slag anything otherwise. Not a bad unit to have.

Harlequins got spun off into their own codex. Can’t really speak for them.

I think that your DA would be better off in a transport, but you only have one. On foot, the shield is probably a good idea, as the 5++ is squad wide IIRC.

I love the look of rangers, but how many units do you need sitting back camping objectives? Still, they look cool and don’t cost that many points.

Guardians suffer mostly from not being jetbikes. But they can do OK.

Warp spiders are good. Very good. Of all the minis in your collection here, they are probably regarded as the most competitive.

I don’t use War walkers myself, but hear good things about them. Weapon loads are mixed, which is generally not a good thing. But they bring firepower at reasonable cost.

Wave Serpent is needed. 40k is very objective based, so getting units to where they need to be is important. For an Eldar army, you are not very mobile. WS are very good transports/tanks.

Prisms suffer mostly from not being one of the broken things in the codex. They remain a solid tank though.

Overall your collection is dated. None of the newest hotness. No bikes, no wraiths. And while it might sound odd, that’s a good thing. The modern Eldar codex is crazy over-the-top powerful. So the “second string” mediocre stuff in the book is actually fairly decent compared to the rest of the game. What you have here is an army that people might actually want to play against more then once.

You have a decent mix of firepower, and some mobility. A reasonable TAC list for friendly play.

I don't dabble in elves. I played them off and on through 4 & 5e, and then solid since 6e.

tassadarr wrote:
Hello, I'm new to 40k and I just bought a bunch of miniatures from a guy, so this is my first army attempt out of what I got from the guy. Please ignore the point value as it is from a 4th edition codex I got with the miniatures, this is just asking if I'm on the right track, or I'm way off. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks in advance for any feedback! - Josh

When you get the 7e codex, just aim for 1k in points. Playing all your models, and then 'pushing' them to max points imbalances their killiness with flabby wargear that doesn't always pay off.

tassadarr wrote:
HQ's
1x Autarch with scorpion chainsword and fusion gun
1x Farseer with witchblade upgrade to singing spear

Try just 1 HQ per 1,000 points. In this case, the farseer. His psy-buffs are more useful than the autarch's Reserve boost. He should join the DireAs on the ground or the guardians (the latter more likely).

tassadarr wrote:
6x fire dragons one with a fire pike
1x Harlequin troupe ( made of 5 harlequins, 1 death jester, 1 shadowseer, and 1 troupe leader

a. At 1k you're not likely to face the kind of tank armor the Fire Dragons are responsible for killing. Maybe they stay out. If an opposing army has an Imperial Knight, then yes, bring the FireDs.
b. I'm not able to give you Harley advice as I don't use them. They're a 'Glass Hammer' unit, meaning it takes finesse to use them well, unlike marines that are more forgiving of mistakes. Since you don't have Dark Eldar raiders (assault vehicles) to deliver them, I'd leave them out of your army for now..

tassadarr wrote:
5x dire avengers one with dire sword and shimmer shield
10x rangers
12x guardians with a heavy weapon platform with a bright lance

Play 'em, but leave 5 rangers out. They don't pack a wallop like snipers used to in earlier editions of 40k, so they're best used to squat on your home objective and maybe finish off a lone dude that your other units failed to kill.

Guardians: Run the full twelve, with a ScatLas. Newb players tend to shoot the one shot with a Bright Lance at a tank and those 24 shots of Bladestorm get wasted. Having the platform's gun be anti-Infantry keeps the guardians focused on their job: Killing dudes. The farseer, joining them is good because:
1. Guardians are civil servants needing his leadership and the fight is likely to come to them anyway. Proxy another model as an upgrade Warlock:
1a. - to give them Conceal or Protect from the Runes of Battle Psy powers
1b. - helps the farseer cast powers
2. For the farseer, take the Primaris psy-power Prescience, and then roll for one on the Runes of Fate table, and then take Guide.

Also, it is a general rule of thumb, play 1+1 troop unit per 500 points, so 3 units of troops is a good idea.

tassadarr wrote:
5x warp spiders one with double death spinners

Upgrade the double gun dude to 'exarch' (like marine sergeant), but nothing else. And buy another 2 boxes, for something called Aspect Host, which you can read up on in the codex.

tassadarr wrote:
2x War walkers one with a scatter laser and star cannon, the other with a bright lance and a missile launcher

Proxy these as dual ScatLas until you replace the guns. Use them to Outflank as a single unit, all the same gun.

tassadarr wrote:
1x wave serpent with holofields
1x fire prisim with holofields

Regarding the WaveS, Nevelon's advice here is mixed. Your footer army does need the mobility of a transport, but the WaveS is no longer the bees' knees it used to be. Go ahead and include it in your list (for the FireDs not DireAs), with the Holofields and ScatLas. The down side is that at 1k, it's gobbling 10% of your points. It's a great *transport*, but with meh fire power.

Prism? Okay.

Something to consider with where you play. Is there a lot of terrain? Is it GW ruins? Lotsa stryofoam that is painted and cut to look like hills? If yes, then Ghostwalk matrix is good for the vehicles, giving them the ability to hide behind/in terrain a bit, gaining Cover Saves and being safe from moving through it.

Play, play, play. Get used to what your army does. Again, next purchases (in order):
2 more boxes of spiders
WraithKnight (pricey, but arguably the best unit in the game), but play him in games above 1k, just to not be too much of a douche.
Of course, buy jetbikes, but *those* also get pricey. However, the spiders and WK are the better bang for your buck, if you're headed for Beer and Pretzel games (friendly) instead of tournament play.

Thanks for all the feed back guys! Now, BrothereKose Let me ask a few things. I understand what you said about the HQ's, but I don't know what you meant by reserve bonus, or if you thought I shouldn't use the Autarch, but you said to have him join the guardians, but I'm not sure how that would work. When you say I should have the farseer join the guardians what do you mean exactly? I also forgot to mention in the post that I also have 15 other guardians and a scatter laser weapon platform. So, I could have 14 in 1 unit and 13 in the other, and promote 1 guardian in each to a warlock. Also being new to 40k, I'm still a little confused on weapons, If the model is already assembled and glued, how do I change out the weapons? On the topic of the aspect host, and the order of which to get the wraith knight and warp spiders. Why would I get the warp spiders to do the aspect host, when I could do it with my warp spiders, dire avengers, and fire dragons, so wouldn't it make more sense to get the wraithknight first? How should I run the wraithknight in the way of upgrades and such? Thankks so much! - Josh

tassadarr wrote:
Thanks for all the feed back guys! Now, BrothereKose Let me ask a few things. I understand what you said about the HQ's, but I don't know what you meant by reserve bonus, or if you thought I shouldn't use the Autarch, but you said to have him join the guardians, but I'm not sure how that would work.

At 1k points, you aren't going to necessarily Reserve much, so the autarch's ability (listed as 'Master Strategist' in the 4e book) isn't so useful, compared to what the farseer's access to psy-powers can do.

tassadarr wrote:
When you say I should have the farseer join the guardians what do you mean exactly?

"... join the guardians" means exactly that. If you're not up on basic Independent Character concepts, then, it is time for you to really get reading on the basic rule book.

**That** is your next purchase. And read, read, read the stupid thing. Again and again. 40k is one of the coolest games you'll ever play, but it also has one of the worst written sets of rules.

tassadarr wrote:
I also forgot to mention in the post that I also have 15 other guardians and a scatter laser weapon platform. So, I could have 14 in 1 unit and 13 in the other, and promote 1 guardian in each to a warlock.

Good plan.

tassadarr wrote:
Also being new to 40k, I'm still a little confused on weapons, If the model is already assembled and glued, how do I change out the weapons?

a. Don't go pulling pieces off yet. Get some games played, and come to an understanding on game basics:, Move, Psy-Phase, Shoot, Assault.
b. People are cool about newer players getting whetted first before any real insistence on WYSIWYG. My group of tourney dudes allow a lot of proxying when trying new stuff.
c. If you're this new, I think it'd be better to make a 500 point list and play a few of those. They're plenty enjoyable at that level and far easier to master.

d. Changing stuff: Just wait on that for a few weeks or til the fall semester. Ask the Painting and Modeling forum once oyu really begin to know what guns you like. With Eldar, basic infantry doesn't really have gun options anyway.

tassadarr wrote:
On the topic of the aspect host, and the order of which to get the wraith knight and warp spiders. Why would I get the warp spiders to do the aspect host, when I could do it with my warp spiders, dire avengers, and fire dragons,

Go ahead and do that. It's fine.

tassadarr wrote:
so wouldn't it make more sense to get the wraithknight first? How should I run the wraithknight in the way of upgrades and such? Thankks so much! - Josh

Run it with its two D-cannons.

I run it with Sword and Shield, because there are some tournament rulings in place that I predominantly adhere to, making this better IMHO. But really, skip buying one. It's the core rules that are your next purchase and focus.

Here's 500 points I'd recommend with what ya got:

farseer - 100 ish
guardians - ScatLas 100 ish
Dire Avengers - more than 50 something-ish

FireDs - with the WaveS 200 +

And round out your points to 500.

Or, play with more toys up to 1k.

Thanks, and that 500 point army looks good. I the meantime, before I get the 7th edition codex, I wrote in all the corrections for my units into my 4th edition codex, so my army codex is up to date, for all my models at least.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I calculated the 500 point army out you suggested. It is a farseer, 10 guardians with a scatter laser weapon platform, 5 dire avengers, and 6 fire dragons with a wave serpent. that is a total of 492 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Never mind, looking closer at the pictures in to back of the codex I have just found out, that my Farseer is really an Eldrad Ulthran. so that kind of wrecks that plan, but it is a way better psyker.

tassadarr wrote:
Never mind, looking closer at the pictures in to back of the codex I have just found out, that my Farseer is really an Eldrad Ulthran. so that kind of wrecks that plan, but it is a way better psyker.

The previous two codexes, Eldy was better. But now for a hand full of points more, I would rather have 3 more wounds, and 1 to 3 more choices of psy powers by simply having a second, regular farseer. Two of them readily out weigh and out perform Eldrad, for the ~same points.

Your plan is not wrecked.

Concerning your models; It is perfectly acceptable to proxy the Eldrad model as a standard farseer, especially at low points games. I've seen it done many times, myself included. And I would emphasize, do play a lower point farseer as Eldy is too pricey for a 500 point game. At 1500+ games, he is okay to take.

In general, as long as you note it verbally *and* on your army list, it is acceptable to proxy a great many things. My first time trying out Riptides (right after codex 6e dropped), I used two Happy Meal Ninja Turtles, bases and height were near perfect. I didn't a second time, though.

This is one of my 'tides now:





I've seen and it was fine:

Mephiston for a regular librarian and vice versa. Ghazghkull Thraka for a regular ork HQ and vice versa, and any number of other Special Character models proxied for regulars and vice versa.

Rhinos missing razorback guns (points paid though), Falcons for Fire Prisms, Valkyires for Vendettas for Vultures, and the list goes on.

Do you have a GamesWorkshop or local comic/game store destination?

I gotta say, your tide looks awesome! I am going to paint most of mine to be like protoss from starcraft. Some of them are already painted very similar to biel-tan coloring, so I will touch them up, and create my own backstory for how they met the protoss. Although I will paint my fire dragons and dire avengers like normal.