Craftworld Etruria - Storm Guardians!

[Urkh]

Hello everyone in this Heretical forum full of foul witches and unclean aliens! Long time player of Black Templars here, and I figured what is the opposite of Black Templars? Xeno witches! So over the past few years I've collected and painted the startings of a new craftworld. I started this craftworld in 6th edition, and it has taken me a "few" years to get everything I have painted, and I thought I would share with you now what I have!

Guardian Squad:

Dire Avengers:

Rangers:

Guardian Windriders:

Vyper:

Autarch:

Wave Serpent:

Fire Prism:

As you can see, the craftworld is very Orange. Craftworld Etruria takes a lot of pride in its crafts, so much so that even the aspect warriors wear the color of the craftworld instead of their own aspect. Different aspect colors are shown through their helmets and the non-plate component of their armor. for vehicles, they get accent colors depending on what I feel the color of the closest aspect warrior color is. So as you can see, the Vyper and the windriders get light blue for shining spears, the wave serpent has darker blue for dire avengers, and the fire prism gets bright red with yellow highlights, close to how I will do fire dragons if I ever own them (further aspect warrior purchases depend on if GWS ever makes them plastic).

The warriors of Craftworld Etruria are staunch defenders of Eldar Maiden worlds, and as such, have a close relationship with many clans of Exodites. They see protecting the Maiden worlds as their sworn duty, and the maiden worlds help the craftworld by supplying them with supplies that can only be grown on their worlds.

To this end, the story of the craftworld is just starting. My cousin has started a small Tau force, and we have decided that we will be making his Tau and my Eldar sworn enemies! His Tau are colored blue to contrast with my orange. We will be playing our first game of 750 pts next monday (the 19th of oct) to get a feel of each other's armies. After that game, we will be starting a crusade campaign where his Tau are invading a maiden world that is still undergoing terraforming, even though the process started thousands of years ago. Etruria will be looking to drive them off the planet! We will be growing our forces in secret between each game we play, so every time we add units to our force, it will be based off what we saw only in the previous game. Blind list building go! I will try and give battle reports for each of the games we play. However, while the first game is going to be with 8th codexes using 9th rules, I do not believe we will be continuing to the crusade portion until after we both receive a 9th edition codex.

A few more thoughts about the army though. I originally started this army planning on it to be a pinning spam list back in 6th edition. The idea was the force lots of LD tests with negative modifiers using powers and the hemlock wrathfighter, to pin multiple enemy units down and hinder their ability to do anything. As pinning has gone the way of the Dodo, I currently lack direction as to how I wish my craftworld to procede. Unless we get plastic aspect warriors with the 9th codex (hopefully we will seeing what the necrons got), the two options I can really see happening are Mechdar, or lots of wraiths. I've yet to play a game with eldar, so discovering their strengths and weaknesses is going to be a ride! Let me know your thoughts!

Edited August 3, 2023 by Urkh

[Xenith]

Lovely work, orange really seems to suit Eldar well!

 

Any ideas for basing?

[Urkh]

Thanks xenith! For basing, my cousin is doing snow bases for his tau, so since we're supposed to be thematically opposite, I was thinking of lava/charred ground. Still undecided, however. A planet in the middle of terraforming can really be anything!

[Greywing]

Urkh, your guys are just straight money. That Guardian squad, and the Serpent...wow.

[Captain Coolpants]

I'm always very partial to orange space elves!

 

So I love these. Cool idea growing your lists after every game. Are you going to set a maximum points limit?

[Urkh]

Thanks guy! It is very much appreciated! I really hope our codexes come out sooner rather than later so we can get the crusade going. We haven't talked about a maximum point limit, but after the first game, we are going to grow our forces to 50 power before we start. I believe right now I'm at 43 power if my math is correct? So I'll have 7 power to work with. 8 if I decide to make the autarch not have wings (I'll say they're malfunctioning for some reason.)I feel like against him, I need more bodies. He has like 36 fire warriors and a box worth of kroot! For 8 power i can afford another 10 guardians and 5 dire avengers? (Using numbers off games-workshop, btw) alternatively, I could make it something I know he would have a hard time killing with fire warrior spam. What do you guys think? Edited October 14, 2020 by Urkh

[TrawlingCleaner]

Urkh, these are bloody gorgeous! I'll always shout from the rooftops about how great orange colour schemes are but Eldar really suit orange.

I'm looking forward to seeing more

[Urkh]

Thanks trawling!

 

So, I managed to get the day my cousin and I planned to play our game off so yay! It is going to be 755 points. My list will be

 

Hq

Autarch: star glaive and plasma grenade (running him as normal to save points)

 

Troops

8 dire avengers w/ exarch

 

10 guardian defenders

 

Dedicated transport

Wave serpent w/ twin shuriken catapult, twin shuriken cannon, serpent shield

 

Heavy support

Fire prism w/prism cannon and twin shuriken catapult (170)

 

Fast attack

3 guardian windriders w/ shuriken cannons

 

Vyper w/ shuriken cannon x2

 

 

My plan is to hit him with as many shuriken cannons as I can. Against fire warriors, I'll be hitting on 3's and wounding on 2's. I'm planning to take the trait that makes my shooting ignore cover save modifiers, so he won't be able to just sit back and shoot me. Going to force the tau to be proactive. I was thinking of making my second trait be the +1 ap to shuriken weapons to really blow his saves down to a 5+.

 

I know he is bringing a hammerhead gunship, and I'm really hoping with the shoot twice ability of the fire prism I'll take it down before he can take down the prism. I can then use the blast profile to take care of fire warriors and kroot.

 

I'm thinking I'll put the dire avengers and autarch in the serpent and leave the guardians in strategic reserve. I'll have the serpent rush up in the, then on turn 2 have the avengers come out and the guardians pop out of reserves. The serpent will then fly behind the fire warriors and about face. Everything will shoot at fire warriors, then I'll charge the serpent in to absorb overwatch before charging with the avengers and guardians. The bikes and vyper will keep their distance plinking off fire warriors that I can't charge yet, and moving onto objectives with their speed.

 

This will be my first game in 9th and my first game with eldar in general, so let me know what you guys think of this strat?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks trawling!

 

So, I managed to get the day my cousin and I planned to play our game off so yay! It is going to be 755 points. My list will be

 

-snip-

 

My plan is to hit him with as many shuriken cannons as I can. Against fire warriors, I'll be hitting on 3's and wounding on 2's. I'm planning to take the trait that makes my shooting ignore cover save modifiers, so he won't be able to just sit back and shoot me. Going to force the tau to be proactive. I was thinking of making my second trait be the +1 ap to shuriken weapons to really blow his saves down to a 5+.

 

I know he is bringing a hammerhead gunship, and I'm really hoping with the shoot twice ability of the fire prism I'll take it down before he can take down the prism. I can then use the blast profile to take care of fire warriors and kroot.

 

I'm thinking I'll put the dire avengers and autarch in the serpent and leave the guardians in strategic reserve. I'll have the serpent rush up in the, then on turn 2 have the avengers come out and the guardians pop out of reserves. The serpent will then fly behind the fire warriors and about face. Everything will shoot at fire warriors, then I'll charge the serpent in to absorb overwatch before charging with the avengers and guardians. The bikes and vyper will keep their distance plinking off fire warriors that I can't charge yet, and moving onto objectives with their speed.

 

This will be my first game in 9th and my first game with eldar in general, so let me know what you guys think of this strat?

I really like your list, it's got a bit of everything and I think it'll do great against infantry. With the blast changes I think that Fire Prisms are a great all-round unit, the first profile is great for dealing with Infantry, the second is great for putting down tougher targets and if you really want to vapourise something the third is your guy.

I agree that the guardians should deepstrike, to be honest they're too weak and too short range to walk up the board.

 

Most importantly though, have fun with your game!

[Urkh]

Well, we had our game yesterday, and I don't think either of us expected what happened. He didn't have enough mini's painted / assembled enough to really represent his army photogenically, so I only have a picture of deployment, and of our HQ's. He used his Grey Knight models as stand in's for his minis that weren't done. The entire board is only the four square section featured in the picture here, measuring a space of 48"x48". Grey Knights Terminators are objective markers. Mission was Ransack.

we rolled off for who got to place terrain first, and we alternated. I won, and I put the hill right in the middle. Right after that, after he put down a terrain piece, I just picked a similar terrain piece and put it in the exact opposite spot on the board to try and create a mirrored battlefield. He didn't like it too much, but I wanted the board to be as equal as possible for our first game with these armies.

I picked Slay the Warlord, Thin Their Ranks, and Engage on all Fronts. He took Engage on all Fronts, Bring it down, and First Strike.

We rolled off for deployment, I won, and chose the deployment zone on the bottom of the picture. he started to deploy, and at this point I told him what my traits were, since I was taking one that made him lose his cover saves (as mentioned in a previous post). This altered his deployment and he only actually put one unit into a ruin. I think he was going to try and get objectives, since I told him that objectives are important in this edition. He deployed a unit of 9 fire warriors on the top right ruins, two 8 man fire warrior squads in front of the craters just to the left of those ruins, along with a fireblade. He put another two 8 man fire warriors in the woods in front of the red ruins, and to the left of those woods, along with an etheral. His final unit was a bunch of Kroot warriors in front of the debris behind the first ruins in the top right corner. He put a hammerhead in the red ruins.

For my deployment, I put my Guardians into reserve using the webway strat. I put the vyper behind the black ruins in the center left so his guys couldn't see it, with the windriders hiding behind the Vyper. the Fire prism went behind the ruins in the lower right, in a position where obsuring would protect it as well. I put the Dire Avengers and the Autarch in the wave serpent, and put the directly to the right of the vyper and windriders, to protect them from shooting from the right side of the board.

I won the roll off for turn 1, and decided to go first. After finding out that my vyper, windriders, wave serpent, and fire prism all had 16" moves, I went full force right into his face. Vyper and windriders went point blank to the fire warriors with the ethereal (windriders hung back a little to get on the objective by the ruins), and the serpent went point blank into the two squads with the fire blade. Fire Prism moved to the left 8" to get within range of the objective marker. I deepstruck the guardians by the windriders as well. Prism shot its cannon twice into the two fire warrior squads by the serpent, who itself shot at the same squad. Windriders, guardians, and vyper shot at the units by them, leaving one unit at only 5 minis, and the ones in the trees miraculously made all their saves.

I then had the vyper charge the larger squad that was in the trees, but got into base-base contact with ones that weren't in them. The serpent charged both squads in front of it, and overwatch took 3 wounds off it (sad face). The Guardians charged the leftmost fire warrior squad, (they had already fired overwatch at the vyper), and made it in with an exact 9 on the charge roll. The guardians brought them down to just 2 men left. This was mostly to just tarpit them and make it so they couldn't shoot in my turn. In morale, his 2 man squad died to combat attrition, and everything else was able to pass.

His turn 1 had the kroot move up to get in range of an objective. He fell back from the wave serpent, but stayed in combat with the vyper. He shot the hammerhead and the fire warriors in the ruins (being buffed by the fireblade) into the serpent, and left it at 3 wounds left. He really wanted to kill it for "bring it down", but failed. Combat resulted in no casualties, due to his ethereal giving his squad a 6+ FNP and he rolled three sixes =(

My turn 2, I fell back with the vyper to where the windriders were, moved the windriders up to the large squad in the woods (so, they swapped places), disembarked the dire avengers and autarch from the serpent, then flew the serpent to behind the same fire warriors. Prism stayed still. I used the strategem to allow my Vyper to fire after falling back, and it, the windriders, and the guardians shot into them, but only killed 1 because of that same FNP. That Ethereal did some work. Serpent and dire avengers blasted one squad off the board, and the autarch threw his plasma grenade at the other squad (had 5 guys), and managed to kill 3 of them with it! My bladestorm ended up generating more extra hits than I even got misses. The fire Prism doubt shot into the Kroot, and after all was said and done, only 7 kroot remained.

In combat the windriders and guardians charged the fire warriors and ethereal. We lost 3 guardians, and he kept managing those FNP rolls somehow, and took minimal casualties. I charged the remaining fire warriors on the other side with the dire avengers and autarch, and wiped them off the board. The Starglaive killed another 3 guys by itself. All morale tests were passed.

In his turn 2, he didn't have much to do, and after some movement and shooting, he looked at the board and realized that I had won. Neither of us realized that I was going to be able to get in his face so fast. He said next game he is going to deploy his guys all way in the back of the board. We'll see how that works for him. Even though I took a cover save negating trait, he probably should have still tried to utilize terrain more. I do feel like I need to assemble some more of my ruins terrain and get it painted so we can have more LoS blocking stuff, but with almost my entire army having FLY, my mobility is pretty good and I think charging should still be quite easy. We'll see.

To finish off, here is a Pic of my Autarch next to his Cadre Fireblade:

I will be working on getting my Eldar based with a volcanic / lava theme, to counter his frozen theme.

[Sandalphon]

Great wurkh!

 

Super consistent output and great colour choice, look forward to seeing how the basing goes!

[Urkh]

I acquired a start collecting eldar box, and after finishing some of my terrain, I decided to reward myself with painting the farseer. I have basecoats and initial washes down. Definitely still WiP

[Brother Kraskor]

Looks like you need some time in the painglove brother. 

 

Your questionable sympathy for the xenos aside, I like the colour scheme you've gone with. All too easy to overdo the bright/colourful schemes with Eldar, but I think this strikes the balance perfectly! Gives them life without looking unrealistic. And cleanly executed too!

[ThePenitentOne]

These guys look great!

 

You made guardians look good; I keep hesitating on getting guardians because I'm wondering if they will be redone this edition- but seeing how good you made them looking... It almost makes me wonder what I'm waiting for.

 

I also loved the canopy on that wave serpent.

 

Finally, I'm inspired by how long you've been working on this project; edition changes tend to set me back on the long term stuff.

[Wulf Vengis]

These are lovely!

 

It warms my soul to see my oldest rival painted up so nicely.

[Urkh]

Thank you for all the kind words everyone! It really gives me the motivation to keep going. As such, I present to you, Vizier Athos!

Don't worry about me brother Kraskor. My next project is a master of sanctity for my Templars. He would love to deny Athos some powers. Him being orange makes him easier to paddle!

I think I've owned those guardians for around five years before I got around to painting them, hahaha! I was still very new to the hobby, and didn't know about "old sculpts" and stuff, so I just bought a battleforce that had guardians, back when battleforces were the "start collecting" boxes. You can probably see some differences in the way some of them are painted as well, hahaha! My army's look is still a work in progress. I'm glad it inspires you to continue to hobby!

What i have left for eldar:

5 man wraithblade/guard

Wraith lord

War walker.

After the master of sanctity, which should I paint?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Great work on the Farseer! The arm repose is a small chnage but it makes a huge difference IMO

I'd love to see your take on Wraiths, would you chnage anything in the colour scheme for Wraith units?

[Urkh]

Thanks trawling! I thought the hand pose they defaulted him was kind of lame. I decided to go with more of a "I'm lifting thing with my powers" vibe.

 

Im not entirely sure what different things I would do to the wraiths yet. It will be a lot easier to decide what I would like after I get them off the sprues and see how they are assembled. My immediate thought though? Making all of the undersides of their armor black, similar to how I did for the blue with the dire avengers. This could give them a spooky Halloween look befitting of the wraith name.

[Brother Kraskor]

I like how you've tied the power weaponry in with the eye colour, it keeps the scheme coherent. I know this was the case for the Autarch too but it's more noticeable somehow on the witch. And lovely striking orange work as per!

 

Edit: I wonder if you will invert the scheme for the Wraith units? So blue with orange trim, and keep the green details. Just a thought!

Edited March 21, 2021 by Brother Kraskor

[Urkh]

Invert the scheme, you say? So they would be more similar to how my guardians are in color ratio? It might be interesting to give them a darker feel, but I've always felt my craftworld is super prideful of its orange color, to the point that even aspect warriors color their armor orange, as is the case with my Dire Avengers. So, I'm not sure my head canon would like them as blue, if that makes sense. 

I might try and paint some spare eldar bits I have in zip locks and see what kind of different ways I can mess around with the trim of the armor. I think the black trim for a Halloween vibe sounds cool, but I want to see it in practice. If it does go well, I can see myself putting spooky, almost Jack-o-lantern faces on them, just to be extra.

As for other color trim schemes, Fire dragons would get yellow highlights instead of orange, as well as a red shade, striking scorpions would get green trim, shining spears would get light blue trim (similar to the jetbikes/viper), dark reapers would get purple trim, Warp Spiders would get darker green trim with a more redish-orange armor. I'm still undecided on Howling Banshees and Swooping hawks (turquoise trim?). All aspects will also have helmets that match their trim. Non-aspect, non-wraiths will have orange armor, red washed recesses, blue gems and cloth, and white helms/weapons.

The eyes on all of my eldar are green, and so will all power weapons and as many vehicle windows as I can manage. It's only the fourth color in their palette, (Orange, Blue, White, Green), so I don't want it to be too prevalent. 

[Pearson73]

Love this colour scheme, orange isn't one you see a lot, but it really works here.

[Bryan Blaire]

Urkh, sounds like we have some similar ideas on the orange scheme with black, but I went with a black under suit and Wraithbone for my Lugganath units, and a black helm with a “Jack o’ Lantern”-ish yellow face - the Halloween intent was very much present in my units, and even though I haven’t gotten far, the “black sun”/autumn of the Eldar was definitely a theme I was working toward with my guys.

 

Some examples of the colors:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/334864-show-me-what-youve-got-eldar-edition/?p=4786994

[Urkh]

@Pearson: Thank you so much for your kind words!

Wow Bryan, I'm pretty sure I've seen your minis when I've googled "Orange Eldar" when I was looking for inspiration for different color schemes a while back! I really like the look of your guys, and I actually just assembled my wraiths as Wraithblades with Axe and Shield. Seeing your guys again makes me confident that they would look great with the black undersides.

 

My cousin got me another Start Collecting Craftworlds box for my birthday, and I have finally received it! I will make the second set of guys with Wraith cannons over D-scythes I think. Those, along with the axe guys, should give a good anti-vehicle boost to my army. Not to mention I also built one of the warwalkers I now have, but I'm waiting to install weapons until a new codex drops. I still have a lot of stuff to build, although I'm not too excited about the Wraithlord. I looked at his stats, and he isn't too impressive. Sad.

Oh well, the craftworld recruitment efforts continue!

[Bryan Blaire]

The slow pace of Craftworld Eldar stuff and the lack of replacement of units definitely had a huge impact on my progress (turning it non-existent), so I understand the hesitation on kitting your guys out.

 

Glad the images helped solidify your concept and I’m looking forward to seeing your minis - your current works look great, I especially like the Fraser and your vehicles!

[Urkh]

Ok, I know I said I would do a chaplain next, but after assembly, I couldn't wait to paint one of these guys. Here is a first run through of a wraith. Let me know what you think!