Eldar Codex: A Review

Keep in mind. The Eldar collection I inherited began around the time that the Harlequin boxed set came out. This was before Avatars (well, harlequin sergeants were called Avatars), this was before Dark Eldar. Hell, this was before aspect warriors. Since then it has grown. I have probably 80 or so Guardians. 3 Wraithlords (one harlequin), 4 vypers, fourteen jet bikes.

I have Nuadhu. Who in the world has Nuadhu? Just me, right?

So, my read of the new Eldar Codex is probably a lot different than other peoples...and that's good I think. Let me try this another way, between Howling Banshees and Striking Scorpions, you would have been a fool to pick the banshees, and realistically, you would have been better off putting your points into a seer council. Between Guardians and rangers, that was a toss up, but they were both better than dire avengers. Dark Reapers were nice, but better than a fire prism or a falcon with a combat crystal? No way. Bikes were useless. Even the special wild riders from the craftworld codex. They were too expensive and they didn't do anything. The Phoenix Lords weren't worth the points, and the Avatar was worth the points even if he never did anything. In other words, while the Eldar codex had grown over the years to encompass a large array of models, half the book would have been a mistake to use. Eldar have a plan for victory--that plan did not include Swooping Hawks. Nice models. Great chance to really show off your painting skills, but actually putting Swooping Hawks on the table was a big f'ing mistake.

Now, from what I understand, the big news behind the codex is the inclusion of this new HQ choice: The Autarch. Okay. I'm not against that. That's nice. I'll probably never use him since the Eldar have ten or so HQ choices already. I suppose if I run out of points, I could put in an Autarch, but I don't really need a cheapie HQ for my Saim Hann force. Plus, given WYSIWYG, I can already see that people will expect me to have twenty versions of this guy so that I can play every Autarch combination. So...I'll convert, but I'm not going to be going crazy on this.

The big news for me is that the codex seems to have brought back to life the troop choices that had fallen into ill repute. Swooping Hawks and Howling Banshees, Jet Bikes and Dire Avengers are all worth buying again. The bad news is that Eldar vehicles aren't nearly as kick butt as they once were, but let's face it, that combat crystal on all the vyper combination was...how should I say this...unfair (and not just in the 40k in 40 minutes games where it wasn't unfair but rather cheating). The best part is that GW didn't cheap out on this. Their solution to the "fix the Eldar" dilemma is ingenious in its simplicity. Half the Exarch powers now extend out to the squad. Wow! That's a good idea. It's great. Oh, and give everybody Fleet of Foot. That was the stupidest crap I'd ever heard of in my life. Half the army could fleet of foot, unless they had an exarch; that was dumb.

But I think the single most worthwhile thing they could have done in the new book (besides making War Walkers worth buying again...thank you GW) was that they brought back the Harlequins. They even made them an interesting troop choice. They aren't the "unofficial Harlequins from GW's site, but for that we should be thankful, I have a feeling that these harlequins will hold their own. My only complaint is that they took out the Solitaire, but I'm sure the Solitaire will make an appearance soon enough.

Problems? Yeah. The way the book is set up there's kind of like this doubling up thing. Under each troop choice is this intricate list of what everything does and then the second half of the book features the point cost of those same items. That's kind of dumb. Just put the PV down with the troops. Last night I was reading the Striking Scorpions entry and was tricked into believing that they didn't have shuriken pistols anymore. Because the weapon wasn't new it wasn't explained along with the striking scorpions; I had to go to the back of the book to look at the "real" army list to see that they were still using two hand to hand weapons at the same time.

My other complaint centers around GW's ever shrinking photo gallery in these codexes. With the number of painters out there, it seems ridicolous that I can't get more than one picture of a Fire Dragon and no pictures of guardians from Saim Hann (the craftworld I play). I realize that most of Saim Hann is flying around and all, but to have that same tired old picture from the old Eldar codex and the old Craftworld Eldar codex...well, I want to see some new stuff. When you pay $20, I think you can ask for some full color glossys.

All in all though, I think that this is a wonderful incarnation of one of the classic 40k armies. I realize that Eldar players are not as common as Necron or Marine players, but as the army has been around for awhile, it has accumulated a lot of different figures to account for, and so I can appreciate the complexity that goes into making rules for the Eldar.

On a final note, this has little to do with the codex itself, but the hot new figures for the eldar are NOT the Autarch. What GW has done with the always ugly Wraithlord and the war walkers is absolutely amazing and I recommend hitting a store just to see these figures.

Slow month for 40k

Jeez, it's been a while. Well, ebay's been flopping, or not flopping depending on how much money I guess I want to make. The problem with ebay is that you really know the ammount of time you put into something and you put it up to sell. Past that point, it wouldn't be so bad, but they let you know how many people are "watching" the item and so as a seller, you know that there's interest. If the item doesn't sell past that point, you know that your prices are too high, but then, I'm not about to drop my prices just because...some of this stuff takes quite a bit of time and effort. In other words, I make this pact with myself to not sell out by selling low, and then... well...and then I have an attic filled with scenery that I need to do something with.


At that point, I should update my bargain bin, but things have been hectic around here. I hope to get pictures up this weekend.

On the playing front, not much to report. Our spot has had major surgery (the ceiling was coming down) which meant not much playing for a few weeks (and a number of comments from the landlord who simply cannot wrap his head around miniaturized wargames). We've supplemented with guitar hero to pass the time and are now, nearly, back on course.

Back on course, by the way, means that I can bring back the scenery that's worth playing on. Last week we did manage to get in a game played almost exclusively on unpainted, unworked out scenery. There was one hill that looked like a hill. Two forests that didn't have any trees. Six or seven little hills made out of green styrofoam that looked like...green styrofoam, and a pink building frame for the center to the table. Oh yeah, and an obligatory terrain bit from Battle for Macragge. We played carnage with four 40k in 40 minutes armies, and no one won because, well...we forget to make the half strength morale checks. My army, though, was last to reach the point where they could not claim the center of the table and I learned a really important lesson: I hate the dark eldar.

Seriously, a raider with a disentegrator, a splinter cannon, and 10 guys inside all rapid firing--what kind of bullshit is that?!?

But, as per usual, the genestealers (which I was playing) did pretty well, managing, in one turn to dessimate an entire squad of grey knights without taking a single casualty. I like to only play Tyranids once in a while so that I don't spoil my fun with too much of a good thing.

In any case, supposedly the week after Thanksgiving is the grand re-opening of Chris's attic and at that time I plan on putting up a new battle report. I am gearing up because we plan on innaugerating the new attic with a city fight board, and well, I want to do this right. I should be putting some pictures up soon under coming attraction, but I'm not sure how forthcoming they will be. After all, we've cleared the attic. No reason to take crappy scenery back out of the box when I can replace it.

Chris is telling me that there may be a big con at Stoneybrook that he wants me to go in on with him. Supposedly one of his WOW guild members runs the show which guarantees us super top secret backstage passes. In any case, I don't think they'll have too much complaint when I show up ready with an Ice World to run some 40k games.

I plan on writing more later about molding techniques so watch for those, but I think that belongs in its own post and not in an update.