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Hi all, just starting out with 40k and am slowly trying to build an Eldar army. There's a good to fair chance I'm gonna come off as a massive noob here (because I am) but I have some questions about building the models;

1) I bought a box of Dire Avengers and was wondering if I can give some of the Exarch weapons (dire swords etc) to the troops. The box comes with a load of them and just seems weird not to use them (even if its just a decorative thing and doesn't effect play)
2) I like the way the Guardians look but am not a fan of them being a civilian militia fluff-wise. Basically, I want to put my own spin on them and make my Guardians a force of recruits from different races. I guess what I'm asking is will it effect the game if I glue a bunch of Ork, Tau, and human heads onto the guardian bodies, and will I still be able to use them under the same rules as normal Guardians?
3) Can I have some of my Eldar riding on the backs of Tyranid Hormagaunts as a decorative feature (not affecting the game)? I know it doesn't work especially well within the fluff but I like the idea of having a group of dinosaur-riding space elves.
4) If I get a Seer Council (Farseer + a bunch of Warocks in a box) can I split it up and have the warlocks join other squads? Just seems like a cheaper (money-wise) way to get these units because they're pretty expensive if bought individually.

Thanks for the help guys

I would say this: wait for the rules and your xeno index to be in your hand. Then you are not relying on hearsay. You can read the black and white rules and decide for yourself what you want to glue and what you want to magnetize, etc.

I've seen the early release BA stuff, but I don't own the book yet, so I'm not making any decisions.

Honestly, As long as your guys have the war gear listed in their profiles modeled on them, I would never hesitate to play against them even if they're riding dinosaurs or have an extra sword. I don't think you'll have much trouble playing casually like that at a local club or store, and customizing the models and the narrative behind them to fit your own story is part of the fun of the hobby.

NinjaSpaceElf117 wrote:
Hi all, just starting out with 40k and am slowly trying to build an Eldar army. There's a good to fair chance I'm gonna come off as a massive noob here (because I am) but I have some questions about building the models;

1) I bought a box of Dire Avengers and was wondering if I can give some of the Exarch weapons (dire swords etc) to the troops. The box comes with a load of them and just seems weird not to use them (even if its just a decorative thing and doesn't effect play)

I wouldn't recommend it; the box comes with a bunch of alternate weapons because you're supposed to be able to build every Exarch configuration (Diresword and pistol, power spear and shimmershield, twin shuriken catapults) out of the one box, but if you start altering the weapon loadout on the troops you'll just confuse people.

2) I like the way the Guardians look but am not a fan of them being a civilian militia fluff-wise. Basically, I want to put my own spin on them and make my Guardians a force of recruits from different races. I guess what I'm asking is will it effect the game if I glue a bunch of Ork, Tau, and human heads onto the guardian bodies, and will I still be able to use them under the same rules as normal Guardians?

Force of recruits from different races seems exceedingly unlikely to me (Orks and Tau don't really have enough in the way of individual free will to go wander off and join the Eldar, humans are speciesist religious fanatics, and the Eldar aren't likely to take on stupid/unaware folks as soldiers and give them weapons in the first place when they could just plant a bit of misinformation and get the preexisting militaries from said other races to go do their dirty work for them). If you want to dump the "civilian militia" aspect I'd suggest just using the Guardian models/rules as normal and then writing a Craftworld with a standing army of some sort.

3) Can I have some of my Eldar riding on the backs of Tyranid Hormagaunts as a decorative feature (not affecting the game)? I know it doesn't work especially well within the fluff but I like the idea of having a group of dinosaur-riding space elves.

Dinosaur-riding space elves work very well in the fluff; they're called "Exodites". I'd recommend getting Cold Ones (from Age of Sigmar) to serve as the mounts (and playing them as jetbikes) rather than Hormagaunts, the models will fit together a lot better and you'll end up confusing fewer people. (A hormagaunt is the size of a large dog, it'd be pretty difficult to try and have any kind of model 'riding' it unless it was a Ripper. Which gives me a fabulous idea for a new Tyranid cavalry unit.)

4) If I get a Seer Council (Farseer + a bunch of Warocks in a box) can I split it up and have the warlocks join other squads? Just seems like a cheaper (money-wise) way to get these units because they're pretty expensive if bought individually.

Thanks for the help guys

Characters joining other squads is a thing of past editions, in 8th characters just wander around on their own. But you can absolutely get the Seer Council box and declare that everyone's an individual Warlock; there's no difference between the model for an independent Warlock and a Seer Council Warlock, though you may wish to find some way to mark them if you've got individual Warlocks, Spiritseers, and a Seer Council in the same army using the same models.

Trollpost.

"Dinosaur-riding space elves work very well in the fluff; they're called "Exodites"." - AnomandaRake

^ This is awesome! Another reason to love Eldar. Thanks for the help Everyone, appreciate it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw Brojah, this isn't a trollpost. Just things I want to do to my army that the 40k rules don't really specify

NinjaSpaceElf117 wrote:
"Dinosaur-riding space elves work very well in the fluff; they're called "Exodites"." - AnomandaRake

^ This is awesome! Another reason to love Eldar. Thanks for the help Everyone, appreciate it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw Brojah, this isn't a trollpost. Just things I want to do to my army that the 40k rules don't really specify

Yeah the old dark elf models on cold ones are perfect for this, as previously mentioned. Go all 'Jurassic Park' on them, or you could use Lizardmen mounts if you really want.

The cold ones look amazing, far better than my original idea of hormagaunts. didn't realise how small the tyranids were XD

"Go all 'Jurassic Park' on them" - Aatare
^ this will be tactic no.1 for any games I play in the future

You can play them as cavalry, too, as long as your opponent doesn't mind you playing them as counts-as Shining Spears.

If you dislike the idea that guardians are militia, check out the lore behind Ulthwe. Their guardians are still sorta militia, but are actually trained like normal soldiers due to how close the craftworld is to the Eye of Terror (and thus are constantly being attacked).

Also, fun hack. Guardians and Dire Avengers share similar bodies and some interchangable parts. You can throw some extra Dire Avenger heads on Guardian bodies to turn the guardians into Dire Avengers. This is good because DAs are pretty expensive money-wise, but guardians are cheap.

"fun hack. Guardians and Dire Avengers share similar bodies and some interchangable parts. You can throw some extra Dire Avenger heads on Guardian bodies to turn the guardians into Dire Avengers. This is good because DAs are pretty expensive money-wise, but guardians are cheap." -MechaEmperor7000

^ thanks man, this is smart. I plan on having a couple groups of 10 Dire Avengers but thats been made kinda difficult since they reduced the box sizes down to 5. Loophole!

It looks like a single sprue comes with 7 separate heads. If you want to cheese it, use three bare guardian heads and just paint their armor to match the avengers and just say these three lost their helmets.

EDIT: Avengers are also suppose to have tabards but you can either find them from other sets or just omit them. I don't think many people will be that nitpicky.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
It looks like a single sprue comes with 7 separate heads. If you want to cheese it, use three bare guardian heads and just paint their armor to match the avengers and just say these three lost their helmets.

EDIT: Avengers are also suppose to have tabards but you can either find them from other sets or just omit them. I don't think many people will be that nitpicky.

If I were going to nitpick I'd personally stick with the helmets as the sole sign of visual distinction (they're the most visible component; the visual difference between everything else on the model is marginal at best), though I would recommend going to Ebay (about $1/helmet last I checked) rather than trying to use the Exarch helmet as a regular dude or trying to scrounge enough bare heads (since there's exactly one bare Dire Avenger head and one bare Guardian head).

Well the sprue comes with 5 standard head, 1 semi-bare head (where the facemask is missing but everything else is there) and one Exarch Head. For a unit of 10, you'll probably use all 7 since the Exarch is free regardless (and is never a bad pick even when he did cost points) and the other 6 are no brainers.

It's just the 3 remaining ones that are the issue.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
It looks like a single sprue comes with 7 separate heads. If you want to cheese it, use three bare guardian heads and just paint their armor to match the avengers and just say these three lost their helmets.

EDIT: Avengers are also suppose to have tabards but you can either find them from other sets or just omit them. I don't think many people will be that nitpicky.

If I were going to nitpick I'd personally stick with the helmets as the sole sign of visual distinction (they're the most visible component; the visual difference between everything else on the model is marginal at best), though I would recommend going to Ebay (about $1/helmet last I checked) rather than trying to use the Exarch helmet as a regular dude or trying to scrounge enough bare heads (since there's exactly one bare Dire Avenger head and one bare Guardian head).

If they are painted and painted in a different scheme than the Guardians, then the different colours should be far more obvious than the different helmets.

Tbh, if somebody is that nitpicky, I'm pretty sure my dinosaur Jetbikes are gonna get shot down long before they notice my bargain-bucket Dire Avengers

Google Exodite Eldar for some seriously kickass dino-rider conversions. Especially the giant carnosaur turned into a fire prism tank.

NinjaSpaceElf117 wrote:
The cold ones look amazing, far better than my original idea of hormagaunts. didn't realise how small the tyranids were XD

"Go all 'Jurassic Park' on them" - Aatare
^ this will be tactic no.1 for any games I play in the future

Go forth and conquer my son.

This is all good advice.
What you want to aim for is WYSIWYG.
Use magnets to allow for different weapons loadouts to give yourself some flexibility.
Don't put stuff on models that can't use that stuff.
"Counts as" is a good thing.
Reasonably the same size models can count as other models so long as they remain WYSIWYG just with a different back story.
Orks as guardians.... Ummm.... No.

I'd have to caution against the Orks too; not so much from a purist perspective as an aesthetic one. Their heads are pretty bulky; I'm not sure how they'd look on Guardian bodies.