Got a second game in with my Eldar since the new codex, and this was a big one! 3,000pts per side against another Eldar we played Relic with Hammer and Anvil setup. So plenty of chances to see the maneuverability of the new Eldar in action!

As an Ulthwe player I’d not skimped on the psykers, with a combined mastery level of 16 on my side and 7 on his. The best combo I got was Guide and Perfect Timing on the Farseer I decided to put with my my Dark Reapers, who used the incredible damage this dishes out to wipe out his unit of Reapers, who were also joined by a Farseer with Guide and Perfect Timing to take First Blood.

This game played out in a very similar way to my first game, with my Eldar pushing up to do massive damage, but lacking the staying power to survive the inevitable retaliation. Both games so far have been against equally mobile armies, and I suspect against slower forces the Eldar’s speed will win a lot of games.

With 6,000pts on the table and both of us still learning the new codex the game took somewhere in the region of five hours, and was pretty gruelling, but was definitely fun. I was slightly disappointed when Eldrad killed himself (failed to cast a power, used his Runes of Witnessing, re-rolled a double 6 and had no warp charge left for his Ghosthelm) giving away Slay the Warlord on the final turn and turning the game from a draw into a loss, but that’s what I get for being greedy and gambling on him.

Dark Reapers were my MVP unit, not only doing heavy damage but also in terms of providing a solid threat over a large area of the field. My Fire Prisms didn’t perform very well, but I think that was largely down to treating them as anti-tank units with their new lance shot, when I switched to dropping large blasts on infantry later in the game they performed much better. Wave Serpents are a great transport, but I don’t think Striking Scorpions are the best unit to put in them. Instead I should have infiltrated my Scorpions and used the Serpents to drop a unit of Guardians to support my Dire Avengers with more shooting. My Warp Spiders got pretty unlucky as he dropped a unit of 9 Warp Spiders right behind them to counter, however I did get my revenge by landing shots from my Fire Prisms on them, leaving only the Exarch. I should really have made sure to finish him off, as he caused no end of trouble glancing away at the Fire Prisms with his Death Spinner while they focused on bigger targets.

I think the new Eldar will take a lot of adjusting too, and I’m going to have to switch back to my Necrons for a few weeks in the run up to a tournament, but I think once I’ve got the hang of them they should be a lot of fun to play, and will run rings around most other armies in terms of movement.