Monday, January 30, 2012

A New Eldar Army List: Eldar Corsairs In IA 11

Well the move back to Lansing is going slowly. Returning to the path is going to be rough. By path I mean the hobby. I have been playing, but my painting and model building has been almost non existent. Dark Eldar, Eldar and Orks are all on my plate. I even have added High Elves to the mix. I look forward to the hobby jump start after I am done moving. The FLGS will be there and of course the other Craftworld authors and the Dark Future Boys.

I digress though. I have been reading through Imperial Armour 11 and I have to say I am pretty impressed. Not only does it have every Forgeworld Eldar unit in it, it also gives us a new army list to play. The Eldar Corsair army list.

Since I have been on a Footdar kick as of late I was very excited to see this army list. It lends itself very well to foot lists. In fact I have been toying with the list making a few different foot lists and they seem to work better than my Craftworld Footdar lists. You are limited to Venoms and Falcons for transports so small units, kinda an expensive razor spam for Eldar, seem to be encouraged. Larger units are forced to g on foot, but are not handicapped by it. The one glaring omission form the list though is the Avatar. The fearless bubble is the glue that binds the Craftworld Footdar list together. This is because of my heavy use of Guardians. The Corsairs benefit form an actual squad leader with a leadership value of 9. This is a major upgrade. Throw in a BS of 4 and that you can make them jet pack infantry you have a mobile force with a nice array of weapons. Having Relentless troops with Eldar missile launchers is very nice.
Since we have better leadership values with the corsairs the Avatar is not really needed. The army really is a hybrid of Dark Eldar and Craftworld Eldar. IN fact you can take Kabalite Warriors and a single fast attack or elite choice from codex Eldar as an Elites choice.

I think the thing I love the most about the Corsairs is the Heavy and Fast Attack choices. Night Spinners and Nightwings  are a fast choice while Phoenix Bombers are heavy choices. I hope this carries over a bit in the next iteration of the Eldar codex. Dark Eldar really set a precedent with flier units in the Xenos codex’s. These Units are fast and pack some serious punch. More so than a Void Raven or Razorwing. They are even about the same points cost. The real advantage though is they both have Eldar Titan Holo fields, or I should say an equivalent rule that generates the same save.  I still with they had missiles like their dark kindred though.

So for the Corsair lists I am experimenting with the core units are the Corsairs themselves. In fact I have 40 Headless and Armless Guardians ready to accept the Corsair conversion kits once I get them and finish my 1000 point bike army for the Adepticon Team tournament. This is bolstered by Nightwings and Night Spinners. Leading the force is the Corsair Prince and the Corsair Void Dreamer.

The Prince is a a mix or Autarch and Archon. The prince has wargear from both as well as some of his own, topped off with a Harlequins Kiss. I am looking forward to using this guy in combat. Being able to take a shadow field, jet pack, haywire grenades, melta bombs, a sword that boosts strength to 4 is powered and rending is pretty cool. So is the one time use orbital strike. The Void dreamer is what I wish warlocks were. A good mix of 3 powers that they have access to every turn. Not just single power. When they take spirit stones you get 2 powers a turn. They have a good mix of weapons as well, including witchblades.

I will cover the Craftworld Forces next time. We have the new Aspect warriors, the Shadow Specters, a new Phoenix lord for that Aspect and a Farseer that has a bubble than makes units stubborn. We also have the Wraithseer as well as all the new super heavy goodies. I am most intrigued by the Corsairs as I have all the units already, minus the Nightwings and Phoenix bombers.

So look for a battle report soon as I whip the corsairs out and continue to rediscover Eldar and foot lists in general. Just in time for a new rules set this summer.

Until next time


Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 comments:

  1. Hope you don't mind me posting a link to my new blog but I just did a similar look at the corsairs after getting in a few games with them. Overall I have to say that I really like the list, even though it does encourage mech pretty heavily. I can't say I am a fan of the void dreamer though.

    http://aspectsofthevoid.blogspot.com/2012/01/corsair-army-list-analysis.html

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  2. I can see where it could encourage mech, but I think everybody leans towards that because of the current meta that seems to have taken hold early on in 5th edition.

    I have made several good foot lists. I have to try them out and see how they do on the local scene, which has kind of gone back to doing foot lists as the all mech list is pretty easily dealt with.

    I have to disagree with some of your points though. It seems like you are approaching the list as a modified Craftworld army and it really is not.
    Having played Dark Eldar and Craftworld Eldar for a long time i see it as a hybrid of both. This makes it its own army with its own unique abilities and approaches to strategy.
    Granted my opinions may change when I play the army list a few times and then i may totally agree with your points lol. its all armchair quarterbacking until i get it on the table.

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  3. Which is a fair observation as I haven't played Dark Eldar in many, many years. Clearly that is what the designers wanted giving them a number of dark eldar items but I don't see how as they are missing the key dark eldar units. They have a webway portal but no wyches, they have a venom but nothing to put in it (other than harlies). They don't get pain tokens. They do get the BS4 so they can shoot good but they don't have the poison weapons that the dark eldar have (which isn't all bad). I think the biggest problem for a foot list is that all the fast attack and heavy support items are mech.

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  4. The real parallel is the mobility of the army paired with the heavier weapons as well as the heavier vehicles. Think of the Eldar as a main battle group and the Dark Eldar as a scout and guerilla fighting force. The corsairs are a mix, almost like a special forces. they can hit hard and fast while still being able to take more punishment than the dark eldar, but not as much as the craftworlders.

    Mech is a little unavoidable true, but the mech units are pretty hard hitting and really support massed infantry well, at least in my opinion.

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  5. I have to say I like the bikes a lot they are sexy

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