Beginning Eldar

[Nicochan]

Hi!

I was thinking about making Eldar my second army..

I need some help to buy 1000 points of nice stuff...I wanted to make a Iyanden army, so a lot of wraithguards and some other death things ;P

ty

[Paulo187]

If you are going to go with a fluffy Iyanden list then you need all of the wraithbone construct things. Here is a sample 1000 point list:

HQ: Farseer (because you always want a Farseer no matter what)
HQ: Spiritseer (to go with the Wraithguard)
Troops: Wraithguard x5 (for anti-tank)
Troops: Dire Avengers x10 (for anti-infantry)
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent (because it is the best Eldar unit in the game)
Fast Attack: Hemlock Wraithfighter (because its fluffy and looks cool)
Heavy Support: Wraithknight (because its fluffy, looks awesome, and kicks butt)

1000 points isn't a lot to work with but this is a good foundation to build on. Come to think of it, since the Hemlock Wraithfighter isn't very competitive you can always swap it out for a Wraithlord which looks cool but is also not super competitive. If you are going super fluffy you can swap the Dire Avengers for some more Wraithguard but then you will suffer against hordes.

[deinol]

I don't know if I'd ever field only one Wraithfighter. Most of the time your opponent's anti-air will blast it before you get to do much. I'd either go with jetbikes or more Dire Avengers (these are a backbone unite) or another 5 wraithguard.

[Nicochan]

I don't like the hemlock..
Isn't prince yriel a good option?

[Paulo187]

Yeah, you're probably right about the Hemlock. We should drop it and exchange it for a second Wave Serpent to ferry your Wraithguard around. You can never have too many Wave Serpents!

So, to summarize. a squad of 10 Dire Avengers with a Farseer in one Wave Serpent, a squad of 5 Wraithguard with Spiritseer in the second Wave Serpent, and a Wraithknight. 1000 points of awesome!

[Sainhann]

Heavy Support: Wraithknight (because its fluffy, looks awesome, and kicks butt)

There are better things to buy.

[Tyrendian]

There are better things to buy.

no there are not :p
looks awesome, plays awesome, scary as hell, expensive as hell... what´s not to like :D

[daboarder]

personally, I prefer grav tanks......just saying

I mean seriously a pair of prisms and a night spinner, beautiful, just a shame that falcons aren't dedicated trasnports

[Nicochan]

Yeah, you're probably right about the Hemlock. We should drop it and exchange it for a second Wave Serpent to ferry your Wraithguard around. You can never have too many Wave Serpents!

So, to summarize. a squad of 10 Dire Avengers with a Farseer in one Wave Serpent, a squad of 5 Wraithguard with Spiritseer in the second Wave Serpent, and a Wraithknight. 1000 points of awesome!

I really like this option!
And when I'll expand my army I want to buy more wraithguards (maybe some wraithblades? they look awesome!)

[Learn2Eel]

personally, I prefer grav tanks......just saying

I mean seriously a pair of prisms and a night spinner, beautiful, just a shame that falcons aren't dedicated trasnports

This is what I love about the Eldar codex. Whether you go grav-tanks, War Walkers or Wraiths for Heavy Support, whether you go Swooping Hawks or Warp Spiders for Fast Attack, whether you go Wraiths or Dire Avengers/Guardians for Troops, and so on, you will always have a good list. THAT is good codex design.

For the OP, for an Iyanden list, I recommend getting a single Wraithknight armed with the two Heavy Wraith Cannons. If you grab the Iyanden supplement, you can make this guy your Warlord - the leader of your force. In smaller games especially, your opponents will hate you!

From there, Wraithguard (preferably armed with D-Scythes, but Wraithcannons are fine) in Wave Serpents backed by a Spiritseer will form the core of your list. Any spare points can maybe go to a a squadron of War Walkers.

[daboarder]

What he said

[Nicochan]

thank you guys, you are really helpful! Now I just have to find the money xD

[Pssyche]

I hear that kidneys are worth a few a few quid on the blackmarket...

[Defenestratus]

Man so much hate on the hemlock.

I admit, I poo-poo'd it when it came out. However its definitely been a winner-winner-chicken-dinner for me.

Nothing better than getting terrify and horrify together. You can make anything walk off the table. Screamerstar giving you a hard time? Horrify + Terrify == Byebye.

Hiding it behind buildings and such to keep it alive has worked for me.

My 2k Iyanden list which has so far been unbeaten (its only played 2 games mind you)

1 Spiritseer
1 Wraithseer w/ D-cannon
10 WG with cannons
5 WG with d-scythes in a serpent with scatter laser
10 WB with axes
1 Hemlock
2 WL's with brighlances and swords (although I'm thinking of swapping them out for scatter lasers)
1 WK with 2 HWC's.

Its a good mix of both shooty and counter-assault elements that is pretty tough to crack. Watch out for enfeeble. As I told my opponents - I don't have many bullets, but every single one of them really really hurts.

[GravesDisease]

Start small! Aim for something that you can do kill teams with and add to it over time. Bear in mind that your attempts to paint the colour scheme will evolve over time so you will want to work on something rubbish first.

The wraith models are so nice it might be an idea to practice your colour scheme on some kind of skirmishing unit. Fluff wise I'm sure you could fit that in too.

[Calam]

You could start simple,

Farseer
2 x Spiritseer
5 x Wraithguard
5 x Wraithguard
5 x Wraithblades
3 x Warwalkers

That will get you to 1000 easy with some flexibility to mess with the loadout on the warwalkers.

This is assuming that you use the Iyanden supplement which allows you to take up to 5 spiritseers as a single choice, I normally double up to make sure I get Voice of Twilight off when I need it. Not to mention doubling your chances at quicken/restrain and protect/jinx. Nothing quite like d-scythes with battlefocus and quicken to get them into range faster, or making Termies 3 up for your wraithblades.

[Eldar_Atog]

Start small! Aim for something that you can do kill teams with and add to it over time. Bear in mind that your attempts to paint the colour scheme will evolve over time so you will want to work on something rubbish first.

The wraith models are so nice it might be an idea to practice your colour scheme on some kind of skirmishing unit. Fluff wise I'm sure you could fit that in too.

And if you feel like your skills are not quite up to painting so much yellow, you don't have to use the Iyanden color scheme. No one is going to shoot you if you use a color scheme that you are more comfortable with.

[GravesDisease]

And if you feel like your skills are not quite up to painting so much yellow, you don't have to use the Iyanden color scheme. No one is going to shoot you if you use a color scheme that you are more comfortable with.

I have heard many times that yellow is one of the hardest colour schemes to paint (with blue being one of the easiest). Any reason why?

[Eldar_Atog]

I have heard many times that yellow is one of the hardest colour schemes to paint (with blue being one of the easiest). Any reason why?

It is very hard to get an even finish with yellow for me. Even on white primer, it takes 2 or 3 coats to make it look right. By the time I get the color to look right, I've lost a lot of the detail on the model. You can get away with this with a marine army but not eldar.

When I need to use yellow as a secondary color, I use Dwarf Bronze instead. That was how I did my Thousand Sons. There's no way I could have done the blue and yellow stripes on their helmets.

[Thaldin]

You might consider a white base coat and instead of a yellow paint layer, try a few layers of yellow wash.

[Eldar_Atog]

You might consider a white base coat and instead of a yellow paint layer, try a few layers of yellow wash.

One question and I'll stop de-railing the conversation. Which wash did you use? I've thought about trying this but wasn't sure which wash to try it with.

[Thaldin]

Sorry, not personal experience, just relating what I have read and see results with the new GW washes. I haven't tried it yet myself

[DarkLink]

I have heard many times that yellow is one of the hardest colour schemes to paint (with blue being one of the easiest). Any reason why?

Yellow pigment is expensive. A bottle of paint that had equal levels of pigment as other colors would literally be four or five times as expensive. As a result, yellow paints are basically thinned down so they're much more transparent, meaning it takes a lot more work to paint solid yellow.

[deinol]

I've had good luck with White Primer -> Averland Sunset -> Yriel Yellow. But I usually use that for trim, so I don't have any experience trying it on large areas.

[T-bud]

Base white, wash with gw yellow wash, you can leave it here or, highlight with white then glaze with gw yellow glaze. You can go one step further and final highlight with dorn yellow (gw edge)

Or

Paint them blue with yellow helmets.

[Mr Mystery]

Due to the general opacity of yellow colours, the best results I've seen involve base coating with a spray gun (contrary to popular belief, GW is up to this job, but any will do).

This ensures a thin, even coat, avoiding visible brush strokes.

[Pssyche]

Bleached Bone/Ushabti Bone is a much more forgiving primer for Yellow in my experience.

[Da Gargoyle]

Hi guys, I may have missed the post but I am surprised no one mentioned the Ghost Warriors package deal that GW released. One Wraithknight, two Wraithlords and 15 Wraithguard/blades. About the only extra you might like to buy is a Spiritseer and another box of Wraithguard. The box set it self is very good value, at least over here it is. The knight and guard pay for the set and the lords become free-bees. The box is tailor made for Iyanden and other purchases might be the character Prince Yriel or Eldrad Ultheran for higher points games. I saw a couple of armies based on the kit at CANCON and watched one game where they badly mauled a SM unit. In the end a land raider was taken out by the knight who then turned on a mass of terminators locked with wraithblades. The terminators did damage, but to little to late. Everything else belonging to the SM had been torched ages

So a knight & 2 lords = 480 plus weapons
20 WG = 640 in whatever format you field them
And your base Spiritseer equals 70 plus any add on's from Remnants of Glory

As for the yellow paint scheme. Start with a grey base coat, a second layer of whatever the replacement for Bubonic Brown is and then two layers of the yellow. I use something similar when I go blood red or whatever they call it these days. Unless you are looking for really dark and shady finishes with colours like red and yellow, a lighter base coat is the way to go. Grey works better than white as an under coat because you can shade it down a little darker and your figures wont have that show room floor look about them.