This week we return to my painful journey back into competitive 40k. And let me tell you, it’s been a real kick in the teeth. I’d like to recap you on the happenings of my elf infested journey and how Slaanesh has been eating real good recently.

Last time I left off with a couple of questions I wanted to have answered before the next article. So if you haven’t read the previous article, maybe go back first. I’ll wait.

Read it? Ok. Here we go.

Let’s go ahead and recap each of those questions one at a time and see where we landed.

Question 1: Does the Night Spinner stay?

No. It categorically does not. It popped off once doing 10 dev wounds to a Tyrannofex, then returned to maybe stopping a single charge with it’s ability. At 210 points I found myself looking to instead include another falcon and some fire dragons. Which has been much better, but we’ll talk about that some more later.

Question 2: Do I bring The Yncarne?

Probably. But I’m so awful with it. I’m going to have to take a bunch of L’s before I learn when to use it best. So far it has died on turn 1 every time, and I’ve made a solemn oath to not teleport it on turn 1 anymore unless Fuegan jumps off the shelf (spoiler alert) and tells me to do it personally, claiming it will save his entire race, defeat the forces of chaos, and make OC 0 units unable to do actions. That will be the day. This will likely be fully answered by the third installment.

Question 3: Is Steve the Footseer 80 points badly spent?

No, me and Steve are good friends now. He usually either lives all five rounds because nobody can be bothered to waste the bullets, or dies turn 2/3 where he’s already done his job more than a few times. Steve will remain in the list for the foreseeable future. Fun little note though; I famously don’t do math very well, I did math 10 twice in high school. But his -1 to wound power should only fail once in every 6 turns, right? Then why has it failed every game I play? Don’t tell me, I want to keep living in ignorance. I love dice games, magic math rocks are so fun!

Question 4: Am I having fun with the army?

Yes. Big damage make face smile. Big movement numbers make face smile. Tiny mon-keigh brain feel powerful when fire and fade good. On a more serious note: It’s very stressful, I’ve lost most of my games so far. But it’s never been so bad where I didn’t have a chance to win, even when Be’lakor makes 5/6 4+ invulnerable saves against Khain’s d6+2 damage weapon. Twice.

So where does this leave us now? Well let me show you the new iteration of the list. It’s gone through a lot of changes and I’d like to talk about them.

Strike Force (2000 points)
Battle Host

CHARACTERS

Autarch Wayleaper (140 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Shuriken pistol
1x Star glaive
• Enhancement: The Phoenix Gem

Avatar of Khaine (335 points)
• 1x The Wailing Doom

Farseer (100 points)
• 1x Eldritch Storm
1x Shuriken pistol
1x Witchblade
• Enhancement: Reader of the Runes

The Yncarne (350 points)
• 1x Swirling soul energy
1x Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls

OTHER DATASHEETS

Falcon (140 points)
• 1x Pulse laser
1x Scatter laser
1x Twin shuriken catapult
1x Wraithbone hull

Falcon (140 points)
• 1x Pulse laser
1x Scatter laser
1x Twin shuriken catapult
1x Wraithbone hull

Falcon (140 points)
• 1x Pulse laser
1x Scatter laser
1x Twin shuriken catapult
1x Wraithbone hull

Fire Dragons (85 points)
• 1x Fire Dragon Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Dragon fusion gun
• 4x Fire Dragon
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Dragon fusion gun

Fire Dragons (85 points)
• 1x Fire Dragon Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Dragon fusion gun
• 4x Fire Dragon
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Dragon fusion gun

Fire Dragons (85 points)
• 1x Fire Dragon Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Dragon fusion gun
• 4x Fire Dragon
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Dragon fusion gun

Shroud Runners (80 points)
• 3x Shroud Runner
• 3x Close combat weapon
3x Ranger long rifle
3x Scatter laser
3x Shuriken pistol

Swooping Hawks (75 points)
• 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Lasblaster
• 4x Swooping Hawk
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Lasblaster

Warp Spiders (115 points)
• 1x Warp Spider Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Death spinner
• 4x Warp Spider
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Death spinner

Warp Spiders (115 points)
• 1x Warp Spider Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Death spinner
• 4x Warp Spider
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Death spinner

Ignore a lot of the war gear. Falcons are rocking double cannons, and exarchs all got their cool weapons.

To start you’ll notice a distinct lack of Fuegan. No I’m not happy about it, but I was peer pressured into bringing double avatar and he was a sacrifice that had to be made. In every game before this list was made, Fuegan was MVP. Strangely, I haven’t missed him however. While he is useful, I think once I get a hang of this avatar business he’ll be a distant memory. If I ever drop the Farseer it would be for him. He causes a lot of problems for the opponent and has only not hit that sweet 12 damage melta once (quick math’s).

Second is the lack of Windriders. I’d like to quote the previous article:

I’m still not sure which war gear to take on the Windriders. The cannons were very good against multi-wound Tyranid monsters, but I think I’m leaning toward the twin-linked catapults. I would have been wounding on 6’s regardless, so I might as well try and fish for more wounds. 

Josh, known idiot

I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone I know is running large monster/vehicle spam stat-check armies. You can use twin-linked all day, they still have 2+ saves, a thousand wounds, and a big strong gorgeous man whose name starts with an L behind their wheel.

You know what isn’t very good into those lists? Strength 4-6 bikes. They were in the list to generate fate dice but just didn’t pull their weight very well. It was more upsetting to play them then it was fun, so I chose to drop them. I’m sure into the marine matchup I’d be swimming in the dice, but that just isn’t anything I’ve played at this point. There’s a small chance they come back should I come upon a rude awakening of marines meta. But having worked at a game store, and watched people play 40k all day, I’m pretty confident that toughness 12 stat-check armies are more than a little common right now.

(Josh would end up being very wrong about this, probably.)

I’ve also dropped a squad of Shroud Runners. One squad does everything I need it to. They’re also durable for eldar so that’s really neat. If I’m doing fixed they get deploy homers for 4 points every time without fail. If it’s tactical, they become a strong flexible unit which makes some of the harder objectives easier to score. For once I don’t fear capture enemy outpost turn 1.

This sort of speaks to the new 2×5 Warp Spiders. These things rock. Did you know they have a 3+(Tabletop.com) armor save? I sure didn’t for their first few games. It’s pretty clutch. The flamers aren’t anything special, but being able to go 24 in a turn, then maybe fire and fade after clearing chaff is a tool I will deeply miss when it’s inevitably ripped out of my hands either in the codex or next edition. I wanted them in the last list but they felt a bit too expensive in that list. Turns out 110 points in rangers wasn’t the call guys, who could have guest.

Speaking of rangers, they so we’re doo-doo dog water bad that in my last 2 games I (a cheater, I guess) brought 1 squad by accident , and they did nothing both games. One of the games they all died to a Be’lakor explosion then a daemons battle-shock d3 mortals. The second game, I don’t even remember what happened to them, that’s how forgettable they were. Regardless, they’re bad. Don’t take them without Illic. Which makes me sad because they we’re painted pretty good.

This is the bulk of the changes to the list. A lot of the things I said last time still stand. Khain is amazing. Wayleaper is honestly the GOAT. And hawks are still making my heart warm.

As it stands, I’m 1-4 with the army.

What’s happening here? I’ve literally cheated with 55 points of more rangers.

Well my only win was the only time I chose to actively play Aeldari like, well, Aeldari. Very patient, slowly draining resources and then scoring huge end game.

My playstyle is decidedly aggressive. Launch everything in their face, and bully primary. Hence the really bad loss of 350 points turn 1 from The Yncarne going, “I think I’ll hit them only twice in melee boss. Also my model broke again haha, get pranked”

“Why am I losing?” I cry aloud, trying to cope with the fact I am a bad player who should have stuck with 48 Accursed Cultists and had a brewski on the side while playing a game (My drink is bourbon if anyone wants to buy a brother a bit of stupid juice next Trident event, thanks.)

Really, what it comes down too is something my very good friend Dan said to me after launching the Avatar into Abbadon and 10 Chaos Terminators mid board, where there was no objective, instead of just walking him to the my opponents clear home objective. “Ask yourself, how does this win you the game?”

If that wasn’t the best thing I’ve been told in a while I don’t know what is. It’s certainly helped with my scoring over all, but it hasn’t fully fixed my lack of patients problem. Look, The Yncarne is so freaking cool. She teleports, uses a cool flamer, then keeps causing problems. So of course, my tiny human brain goes, “Well I mean, I could just teleport and do the cool thing now and not wait for later.” Not realizing that if I wait, I get to do the cool thing maybe three times instead of one.

That’s pretty much everything for this update. A shorter one to be sure but I wanted this series to both be something I can easily communicate with the audience my journey as well as write between other content.

I’ll leave you all with a few new goals and questions.

The primary goal is to try and win enough games to break even on win rate. Hopefully time permits that, but hey, I can dream. The second goal is to come back next article with glowing reviews of The Yncarne. But as established earlier, that will take supreme self control on my end. CSM brain go brrrrrr.

The main questions I want to answer are straight forward. Do I miss Fuegan enough to make the Steve the footseer go back to the craftworld? Do I stick a catapult onto the falcons for the advance, fire and fade play late game? And on a similar note, do I value assault or 18″ range more on my fire dragons? The exarchs gun is longer range, and higher strength, but losing out on assault has been felt in a few games. I don’t think it was game changing, but I’d like to know for sure if that’s a pivot I need to make early.

Wish me luck out there space-farers. Drink lots of water, be kind to your neighbor, and let me know your thoughts.

Be safe.