7 Inch Move

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After just a short time with my Eldar army, inheriting most of it from a friend, building and playing it for no more than 8 months, I can confidently say it was the most fun, the most consistently effective and the most challenging, in terms of painting and playing, experience I've had with Warhammer.

Formally a dedicated tread head, I had played dozens of incarnations of Imperial Guard for the last 5 years, and to a lesser extent owned Sisters of Battle, Chaos Space marines, Dark Eldar, and Necron armies. The Eldar have continually made me into a greater play, utilizing blistering mobility, unmatched close combat and deadly psychic abilities to literally crush opponents. Consistently effective, the W-D-L ratio (30-2-4;I've lost count of W, but the L's are accurate, I've not forgotten my lessons!) has been unmatched in my career, despite years of tinkering with Imperial guard lists.

Balanced, fluffy, deadly, elite, all describe the playing style. Here's my 1500pt army list:

HQ
-Avatar

- Farseer (Fortune, Doom, Singing Spear, Spirit Stones, Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing)

ELITES
-5 Wraithguard, Warlock, Enhance

-6 Fire Dragons, Exarch with Flamer

-6 Striking Scorpions, Exarch with Claw, Infiltrate, Move through cover

TROOPS
- 10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with 2 Shr. Catapults, Blade Storm
- Wave Serpent, Sprit Stones, twin linked Star cannon

-5 Pathfinders

FAST ATTACK
- 3 Shining Spears, Exarch with Star Lance, Skilled Riders

Heavy Support
- Falcon, Scatter laster, Shr. Cannon, Holofield, Spirit Stones

TACTICS

-Deployment
2nd Turn is Preferable. Deploy the Avatar as close as possible, focusing on an isolated weak point of the opposing force, usually this means going heavy on a flank or hugging LOS blocking cover. Deploy the 2 vehicles, Fire Dragons in the Falcon, Dires in the Serpent, out of heavy weapon range, but on the board. Farseer is deployed with the Wraithguard keeping within 6" of the Avatar. Spears in reserve, Pathfinders infiltrate, Scorpions infiltrate, they must be close to the avatar and out of most 1st turn shooting, they will get lit up, but you need them to support the avatar and vice versa.

While there is not much long range firepower; though pathfinders can kill just about anything, the real trick of this army is its small foot print and extreme fire weathering ability. Holofields, loads of toughness 6, 2+ cover saves, and most importantly Fortune. A fortuned Avatar is the most deadly unit in the game, and will absorb an entire army worth of shooting and assualts.

The one gambit is run as hard as you can to either a critical fire base or cluster of objectives. The anvil of this army is the Avatar fortuned, the Wraithguard following behind, keeping cover, plus scorpions on hand to clear any infantry trying to bog down the Avatar.
The vehicles are pretty durable, but they can't be initially too aggressive, however by 2nd turn Dire avengers should be popping out setting up cross firing lanes, fire dragons putting pressure on their target, this is the Hammer coming down.

Most important is target priority and focus. Doom is critical and most important is to realise how vulnerable each unit is unsupported. The heavy infantry and fire power from the tanks, and snipers will absorb and repel any aggressive movers. Shining spears will come on by turn 3, used to counter any units too close to my table edge, ei; support the pathfinders.

By letting your heavy units occupy opponents forces, the rest of the force should be totally free to dismantle exposed enemies. Ignore and fient on their heavy flanks.

Hope fully this gives an idea of my playing style. Usually I deploy clustered up, almost congo line, but that means of flexibility to go heavy on the more oppertunistic side.

Now the gaming pics! Unfortunatley used only my cell phone, irregardless, enjoy!