Vyper Update 1

Here is my first update on my progress on Vypers. I normally do one model before I perform any sort of assembly line type painting so that I can get all the steps and "formulas" down before I go on to the rest of the models. This one has taken me quite awhile. I am guessing it's because of basing them black. After foundation and 7 coats of red I believe I'm happy with the result of the body.

As you can see it is still a WIP (copied the green glow effect from Ron at From the Warp. I am not done with the gunner tourret, gunner, weapons, gems, highlights, metal details, gems and of course the dreaded Cosmic Serpent but figured I needed to do an update. If anyone has any tips on how they did their cosmic serpents let me know. I am leaning towards using a stencil but I'm afraid I may just have to do it free-hand.

Saim Hann vs. Tau

1750

2 Bases

Spearhead

Won the roll to chose and picked to go 2nd being an objective game and all. I always worry about going second specially deploying everything. However, I've been having a lot of bad luck with reserve rolls in games where I go 2nd and reserve everything where basically everything comes in small tiny waves easy to handle by the opponent. So, took 2nd and deployed everything.

Even with trying to hide behind some of the terrain for cover one of my vypers, and a whole unit of jetbikes bit the dust (morale failure) after the first turn of Tau shooting.

So, Turn 1 Saim Hann I decide I am going to send the seer coucil down the center fortuned up to busy up / threaten the Tau's base. Having some of the bigger hitters tied up shooting at the council I turbo boost my bikes up the side and give them some cover with a fire prism which went flat out. Vypers move up to engage the piranahs while giving cover to my serpent for a couple of bright lance shots. Not much of this works due to disruption fields, I believe I destroyed maybe 1 piranah.

Turn 2 - Tau

This sees the Tau HQ deepstriking near my base and my fire prism getting pwnd even with holo-fields!

Turn 2 - Eldar

Managed to take out the pirana's although it took more fire power and commitment than I had originally planned. Dire avengers get out and take out the deep striking Tau HQ.

Turn 3 - Tau

Vyper goes down and I lost some of the seer coucil members. Devilfish begin their move along my deployment towards my base.

Turn 3 - Eldar

Seer council takes out a hammer head invading right into the Tau territory. Vypers are occupied yet again with another set of pirana's

Turn 4 - Tau

Sees 1 more seer council member dead another vyper gone and more advancing towards my base from the devilfish troops.

Turn 4 - Eldar

Jetbike squad at this point turns around due to all the pressure at the home base to backup claim my base while the remnants of the vyper squads zoom out to contest the enemy base with the seer council.

Turn 5 - Tau

Lots of jetbike deaths from fire warriors and drones but alas the eldar pass their morale

Turn 5 - Eldar

Bikes zoom in near the serpent to backup claim the home base vypers zoom in closer to the enemy objective but alas they fall short in distance. Serpent is positioned to attempt to prevent the devilfish from contesting with simply landing near my serpent. With that the game goes on!

Turn 6 - Tau

In this turn the Tau clean up the lonely warlock left in my seer council and 1 of the 2 vypers near their base as well as most of the jetbike squad near my own base yet they pass their morale test go guardians!

Turn 6 - Eldar

Vyper zooms out to contest enemy base. Game over. Eldar Victory!

Gluing plastic after painting it - Vypers

So, a little video asking for some advice on gluing after having painted a model.

Game Room

Hey guys! Finally got a camera. Decided to shoot some video of the game room to test it out!

Magnetizing Flying Bases

Although I copied the idea itself from Fritz over at Way of Saim Hann I did a couple of things differently and thought I would show you guys what I did. First, it was my intention to use the Magz toys that Fritz recommends on his video so I purchased them.

Now, I was not too thrilled about the idea of gluing the magnet pieces to the flying bases. I decided to give a hand at putting something metalic on the stand and on the figures and simply have the sticks magnetize to both. I was not sure if they were going to hold but at the end it worked out. I went to the hardware store and bought some Wire Nails Size 1x16. I believe they cost me less than a dollar. I then used a wire cutter to cut them just right so that a piece of it was still left to fit inside the hole of the flying bases as well as the models.

I decided that I would use super glue to glue these nail tops to the bases and models. Super glue lasts for a very long time and although it will eventually give out (sooner than Epoxy or green stuffing) it is less messy to "re-do". So I proceeded to glue these to the bases, models, and even modified the vyper weapons to use them also.

The area where the weapon is placed on the vyper I ended up simply super glueing two Grade N52 1/8" x 1/32" magnets from K&J Magnetics to it.

After everything was said and done I am quite pleased with the outcome. I must confess however, putting the army "together" when going to play requires speed or put it together prior to getting a game as putting the magz sticks on the bases and then the models on it takes a tiny bit more time than simply getting them out of the case. However, I think it's worth all the trouble.

Eldar Skimmer Tactics

So, after many games in which I throw my Seer Council at the Assault Terminators w / Land Raider or Command Squad with Feel no pain and Storm Shields I started to think. Why do I keep sending my seer council out to stop the charge from the terminators / command squad. Specially anything on a landraider since they are able to assault from a great distance: 12" from LR movement + 2" from disembark + base size + 6". That can be a 20" assault range threat! Let's not even talk about the LR starting and finishing it's movement on a road because it gets worse.

Well, my opponents because quite familiar with the Seer Council and began planning on their hard hitters to be stuck on them also. I no longer had an advantage. The Seer Council getting stuck with their toughest unit was now part of THEIR plan. I was really wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make things go back to being on my terms and so it was that the Fire Prism (Or any tank with AV12 + holo fields but in a pinch any tank). Truthfully I have most of the idea to thank to my good friend Seint (nick name for now) who walked me through what he was thinking I ought to be able to do.

I was playing a game in which the same thing as always was about to happen, go up and force the enemy to engage my seer council or suffer an assault from the LR and it's occupants. It suddenly became apprent to me what my friend had been talking about. If I were to park my Fire Prism an inch away from the Land Raider it could not move forward as there was other structors on either side of it. Now, there wasn't so many structures that it was a city fight game but there was enough where the Land Raider wouldn't fit in that particular spot of the table without backing all the way out and coming back around which would then ruin their assault. Ramming the Prism was not an option as the LR can only achieve Strength 5 from a Ramming maneuver and that wouldn't even glance AV12. Amusingly enough this hapenned for the first time where my Fire Prism had to go 18" to get there so anyone assaulting needed 6's anyone shooting had to deal with AV12 (my back was not facing any shooters) and I got a cover save. On top of all that they would end up rolling twice on the vehicle damage chart THE FIRE PRISM WAS A BEAST!

Shooting yielded nothing but a 2 which turned into a 1 (crew shaken) and the assaults from the terminators yielded nothing. I now still have my Fire Prism AND my seer council to assault the terminators on their own terms or wreack havok on the rest of the army as they would have to get back in next turn without being able to assault at the 20" threat range they usually have while inside the LR.

So, skimmers! Do not forget you can do this and stop movement from hapenning! Also, I've tried this with a combination of Prism and some Vypers or Vypers alone. With the right combination of speed for cover and 6's needed in combat and let's not forget that a 3+ and the ramming vehicle stops ramming a skimmer, these vehicles are incredible at stoping movement from high threat targets on vehicles.

I will revisit this post with some pictures soon but hopefully it has all made sense.

My 1750 Saim-Hann list

So, been using the list for pretty much the last 20 games. I've probably lost 5 drawn 10 and I'm on a winning streak now. I think because it just took me a while to learn to use the incredible speed and maneuverability of the army. I actually have made some very minor adjustments to the list in terms of weaponry but alas, here's the list:

Farseer w/ RoW, RoWit, SS, Fortune, Doom - Jetbike
Warlock x 3 w Destructor - Jetbike
Warlock w Embolden - Jetbike
Warlock w Enhance - Jetbike

7 Guardian Jetbikes w 2 cannons
7 Guardian Jetbikes w 2 cannons

10 Dire Avengers w Exarch Baldestorm
Waveserpent w / TL-BL and SCan, Stones, Star Engines

2 Vyper w / Scatter Lasers and SCan

2 Vyper w / Scatter Lasers and SCan

2 Vyper w/ BL and TL-SCat

Fire Prism w / Holo Fields, SS, Star Engines, TL-SCat

Comes to exactly 1750. A couple of things that I've changed over the last 20 games or so, and by no means does it mean it's a permanent change. Seer Council, I've done all with SSpears and Destructors and truthfully they felt really realy weak in combat missing one attack per guy and at times stricking at the same time as a marine, I wasn't feeling it. Ended up with the build above and haven't looked back for awhile now (although I do miss the SSpear on the Farseer sometimes to pop the vehicle and assault the guys inside).

I did used to have guardians inside the waveserpent I believe because my vypers used to carry star cannons. I was not digging the star cannons at all. I felt that each group did not get enough shots and needing 4 to hits just wasn't enough. I then switched to scatter lasers... oh my... not onlyl did this switch give me room to put my dire avengers back in but 14 S6 shots from a single Vyper group have destroyed an incredible a mount of vehicles. Also, if the need arose (which it does often) to move 12" to either have my enemy need 6's or to get away from an assault all together... that is still 8 S6 shots 8! And that is just from 1 vyper group which we all know at least two if not all three groups will work as one unit a lot of times.

I did find it necessary to not have a third group of Scatter Laser (I wish) but equiped them with Bright Lances. I fight against Land Raiders pretty much everytime I fight so I need more than just the Prism Cannon or the TL-Bright Lance from the Waveserpent.

Anywho, those are the small changes I've made over time and with some practice.

Current Status

Ok so I actually got started with this army about five months ago, and playing 40k about a year before that (Nids). I have actually gotten quite a few games in with my Saim-Hann and been doing pretty well. To make my army I was able to get a hold of two Windrider Hosts. Guys, I cannot tell you how helpful that was as it was almost 90% of my army in two boxes. I also got a Falcon, a Wave Serpent, some Dire Avengers, and some extra Vypers for my list. I use the Falcon as a Fire Prism until I am able to either get the actual model or just buy the prism bit to use on the falcon.



As I said before I've actually been playing for a bit some I've made some great progress in building the army. I will get more accurate pictures up later as in this picture I didn't have the last vyper for my BL group built and no Dire Avengers..... Well, I guess I don't have riders on the bikes either... but all in good time.




Once again, with inspiration and guidance from Fritz over at Way of Saim Hann I went with the Magnetic Toy. I did not do this exactly the same way but I will have a blog post on that in a couple of days. Also, I am still in the process of magnetizing the Waveserpent and Falcon weaponry which I am still unsure how I am going to do it.

The Beginning...

Finally I decided to give a shot at a blog. I've tried it before and truthfully the hardest part is "catching" that moment in a picture or remember enough of a battle to put it down into words. However, I've decided that I'll just blog about whatever I do have or managed to capture and I'm sure in time it will get easier and easier to do.

This blog will be about Eldar and I would like to mention that Fritz over at Way of Saim Hann has been my inspiration not only to do Eldar but to start my blog. Truely a great blog with a lot of great information! I hope that my blog brings at least some good reads to you all!