Playing Eldar: The First Outing

In the Rocket City, we have a pretty good group of 40k gamers. A lot of us play in our little clusters most of the time (such as the handful that join me at my apartment). The local club, HAAWGS, has been setting up game nights for the last few months in an attempt to get everyone out and mingle a little more. Tonight is one such night, and my Eldar are going to take their first trip away from home.


This isn't my very first time playing with the Eldar, though I only have a few games in at this point just to get a feel for the basic units.  With a mix of poor dice rolls on critical events and a general lack of understanding of the army I have yet to win a game, though I did manage a draw in my most recent game.   I have agreed to help one of the members of HAAWGS by playing a game of 40k against his son's Ork army.  From my understanding, Lucas is about 13 years old and only has a handful of games under his belt.  I am going to use a very unfamiliar army myself, so this should put us on a more equal footing, even though I have a great understanding of the 40k fundamentals.

With that in mind, the plan is to learn how my units work, have fun, and give this kid an overall great experience.  I'm very much the competitive type, but not every game needs to be played in a cutthroat manner.  I'm hoping Lucas will surprise me with his knowledge of the game so I can spend more of my resources on performing better on the tabletop.  To make things easy to remember, I will only be using the models I own.  Sometimes at these events we play with a couple of proxies, but generally everything is WYSIWYG.  My Fire Dragons are supposed to arrive tomorrow, so my list will definitely be without them tonight.  Storm guardians are also out, as I think I only have four of them built at this point.

I have tailored the firepower in the list to be able to accommodate a horde type army, but I have made an effort not to specifically pick on the Orks.  Most of the time when I come to these events I do not have an opponent planned ahead of time and so I bring an all-comers list.  I did advise Lucas and his father ahead of time, so I'm hoping he does some tweaks to plan for Eldar as well. It should be interesting.  Without further explanation, here is the planned list:

HQ:

120 Farseer
- Doom
- Guide
- Spirit Stones

Elite:

198 Harlequin Squad
- 4 Harlequins
-- 4 Kisses
-- 2 Fusion Pistols
- 1 Troupe Master
-- Power Weapon
-1 Shadowseer
-- Kiss

Troops:

322 Dire Avengers Squad
- 9 Dire Avengers
- 1 Exarch
-- Bladestorm
-- Defend
-- Power Weapon & Shimmershield
- Wave Serpent
-- Shuriken Cannon
-- TL Bright Lance

322 Dire Avengers Squad
- 9 Dire Avengers
- 1 Exarch
-- Bladestorm
-- Defend
-- Power Weapon & Shimmershield
- Wave Serpent
-- Shuriken Cannon
-- TL Bright Lance

162 Guardian Jetbike Squad
- 4 Guardians
-- 1 Shuriken Cannon
- 1 Warlock
-- Spirit Seer
--Singing Spear
-- Destructor

162 Guardian Jetbike Squad
- 4 Guardians
-- 1 Shuriken Cannon
- 1 Warlock
-- Spirit Seer
--Singing Spear
-- Destructor

Fast Attack:

70 Vyper
- Shuriken Cannon
- Scatter Laser

70 Vyper
- Shuriken Cannon
- Scatter Laser

70 Vyper
- Shuriken Cannon
- Scatter Laser

Heavy Support:

155 Wraithlord
- Bright Lance
- Eldar Missile Launcher
- 2x Flamer

155 Wraithlord
- Bright Lance
- Eldar Missile Launcher
- 2x Flamer

185 Falcon-Shuriken Cannon
- Scatter Laser
- Holo-Fields
- Spirit Stones

Total: 1991 Points

The basic plan is to reserve the jetbikes to keep them safe for a few turns, and then use them to help clean up the remnants of other squads.  If need be, they can work on armor as well with the Warlocks' spears. The squads are increased to 5-men squads to require that 2 models are killed to make a leadership test.  While that doesn't take a lot of firepower, I expect to keep the enemy's fire focused on closer and more immediate threats.

I will use the Vypers top lay down suppressive fire, taking out the Ork vehicles and providing cover to my Wave Serpents.  The Harlequins will be babysitting the Wraithlords a little bit, with the Shadowseer acting as their leash, at least until the guardians come on and provide some more psychic coverage.  I know that these Wraithlords will severely slow down my force unless I leave them unsupported.  I don't have a huge problem with leaving them to their own devices if they survive past mid-game.  Their sole job is to take out the enemy transports so that the rest of my army can move around at their leisure.

As always, feedback is appreciated, even after my gaming tonight is completed.  More insight is never a bad thing.