Eldar vs Salamanders Battle Report (Part 1)

Thought I should actually use some of the Eldar army I've painted up so I decided to pit myself against a friend's Salamanders force. Only a small game, just under 600pts per side but interesting nonetheless (and yes, I know we haven't entirely stuck to the rule re: troops but I haven't finished my Guardians yet!).

Eldar

Farseer: singing spear, spirit stones, runes of witnessing, doom, guide (133)
Dire Avengers (x10): Exarch with power weapon and shimmershield and bladestorm (162)
Howling Banshees (x6): Exarch with executioner, war shout and acrobat mounted in a wave serpent with shuriken cannon, twin linked missile launchers and star engines (273)
Striking Scorpions (x5): (80)

Salamanders

Space Marine Captain: boltgun with hellfire rounds, power sword, artificer armour (140)
Tactical Squad (x10): Flamer, missile launcher, sgt. has chainsword and melta bombs (175)
Terminator Squad (x5): (200)
Dreadnought: multi-melta and extra armour (120)

These pictures show the setup for both armies. The terminators were kept in reserve to deep strike in during turn two (at least, that was the aim) and the Howling Banshees were in the Wave Serpent.

Turn 1

The Salamanders edged forward with the tactical squad splitting into two combat squads so the missile launcher toting marine could fire upon the Dire Avengers which he did, although only taking one of them out.

The Eldar turn was considerably more successful with the Farseer casting doom on the missile launcher combat squad and then guide on the Dire Avengers. After 16 rerolled attacks from their shuriken catapults, the combat squad were annihilated. The Wave Serpent pushed up the right flank at full speed to avoid drawing too much attention from the dreadnought's multi-melta.

Turn 2

The terminators arrived and their deep strike was spot on - no casualties. They appeared behind the Eldar lines, with the Farseer looking rather vunerable.

The dreadnought moved to deal with the Wave Serpent and the remnants of the tactical squad, with the captain, moved closer to the Eldar lines. The Terminators unleashed 10 shots with their storm bolters but only caused a single wound on the farseer. The dreadnought failed to hit the Wave Serpent and the tactical squad failed to find a chink in the Scorpions' armour.

In the Eldar turn, the Banshees disembarked from the stationary Wave Serpent and moved (with their fleet move) to within assault range of the tactical squad. The Wave Serpent swept around the bunker but failed to damage the dreadnought. The farseer doomed the terminator squad and cast guide on the Dire Avengers who opened fire and killed three terminators (if that had been a tyranid brood, they would have been completely wiped out!). In my haste to shoot at the terminators, I forgot to move the Scorpions to within assault range, so they were wasted for another turn!

Wave Serpent and Eldar army so far...

Managed to blitz the wave serpent today. Strange what you can do when you put your mind to something. I'm finding yellow a very difficult colour to paint, and the main reason I started an Iyanden army was because I thought yellow would be easy to shade and highlight. Tried a slightly different approach to the colour for the wave serpent: iyanden darksun - baal red (shade) - golden yellow - sunburst yellow - bad moon yellow (yes I still have some!). The black I highlighted with astronomicon grey, it is quite difficult to see, however, not sure what to add to the black underside to make it stand out more. I haven't glued the missile launchers just yet - still unsure whether to paint up all of the weapon options and using some of the magnets I read so much about to secure them to the turret.

Also taken some pictures of my current painted Eldar army. I've still got guardians, striking scorpions with Karandras, warp spiders, swooping hawks and dark reapers left to do. Lots of late nights ahead!

Eldar Farseer

After my attempt at the carnifex and the Howling Banshees, I emailed BOLS about painting large areas of flat colour and avoiding the drybrush effect (which looks rather rough and unfinshed). Thanks to Jay from BOLS who replied with no less than a step by step guide to painting an Eldar Guardian's helmet! Since I was slightly bored of painting many guardians, I decided on a farseer to lead my fledgling Eldar army and the results are below. I attempted some blending and I'm really pleased with the cloak (I know some may be surprised at the colour scheme, but I think it works) and the inside trim (blue, to match the Iyanden theme for the rest of the army). I still can't effectively paint gems, but I guess that'll be the next area to concentrate on to improve this further.

Any comments and advice would be much appreciated. Once I've finished the Guardians, I've recently bought a Wave Serpent to tackle which I hope won't look too garish with the Iyanden scheme. I'm going to use the yellow effect from the Ork Nob in WD351 (tausept ochre - golden yellow - skull white) and see how it turns out.