List Building: Eldar 1,500 Points

I partially broke my ban on buying more minis and added ever so slightly to my small Eldar collection. My self justification was that I found a good deal on weapons platforms, but then had more platforms than guardian squads, so had to pick up the bits to make another 10 defenders. I certainly paid less than I would have to add one of the new kits, but the new kits would have been cooler. And then I won an Avatar auction for cheap. Oh well.

Anyway, with us deciding that our 3-player free for all game would be at 1,500 points, I figured I should come up with a 1,500 point list for the Eldar if I want to use them.

The new purchases let me get to 1,500 without taking a special character or totally over-equiping all my Exarchs and HQ choices. That said, I tricked out an Autarch for this list, just because shenanigans.

Without further ado - my proposed list, with my justifications after:

Autarch: fusion gun, power weapon, Swooping Hawk Wings, Faolchu's Wing, Mantle of the Laughing God

Farseer: Spirit Stone of Anath'lan

Warlock Council: 4 Warlocks, 2 Singing Spears

10 Guardian Defenders: Starcannon

10 Guardian Defenders: Eldar Missile Launcher

10 Guardian Defenders: Bright Lance

10 Storm Guardians: 2 Flamers, 2 Power Weapons

5 Dire Avengers: Exarch w/Diresword and Battle Fortune

6 Warp Spiders: Exarch w/Spinneret Rifle, Fast Shot, and Marksman's Eye

Wraithlord: 2 Flamers, Scatter Laser, Starcannon

Fire Prism: Shuriken Cannon

As just about everyone seems to have concluded, the Mantle is arguably the best relic, and great for a Farseer on a jetbike. I don't have any jetbikes, so that's not an option. The other relic that's I've seen getting online consideration is Faolchu's wing, allowing the bearer to run 48" at any time, though they cannot shoot, cast powers, or charge for the remainder of the turn.

Considering I am a little short on points, don't have a jetbike, and generally want to have something a little wacky in the list just to try out, I decided to give both of these relics to an Autarch, who will be represented by Baharroth. The Mantle gives him stealth and shrouded, while the Wing lets sprint to just about anywhere on the board. Combined with his wings, he can travel 60" in a single turn. Giving him a fusion gun gives him a chance to go hunt a tank from anywhere turn 2, assuming he doesn't get flamed out of cover with a 2+ rerollable cover save (assuming I run him into cover, which, why wouldn't I?). Another build I considered was giving him a Warp Jump  generator and reaper launcher, since jet pack infantry are automatically relentless.

After taking a second look through the Relics list, I had to also consider the Spirit Stone of Anath'lan for my Farseer, which allows you to reduce the cost of casting a power by 1, to a minimum of 1. Four of the six possible rolls on Runes of Fate are Warp Charge 2; the Spirit Stone would allow me to cast some or all of these in a single turn, reducing the Warp Charge cost to 1. The trade off, of course, is that my Farseer then can't use his rune armor, meaning he gets no save until his following turn, putting him at some serious risk. However, if he's in a big blob of Guardians in cover with conceal that should help, even if I am playing cover-ignoring Tau. 

On the subject of Tau, I figure I'll be facing a healthy number of pathfinders in this game, but also in general, cover has gotten generally pretty available and reliable. With that in mind, I decided to arm my Storm Guardians with flamers, figuring their goal will be to torch any forward observer types. Giving them backup in this role will be a wraithlord with two flamers as well.

The rest of the force is pretty similar to my 1k list, just with more Guardian Defenders and weapons platforms added in. With four Warlocks I figure I might get a chance to try out some of the cool Runes of Battle powers, but can always revert to Conceal if need be. The other change is, ideally, proxying my Falcon as a Fire Prism.

The battle plan is essentially to hug cover and harass where I see fit. I expect to divide my forces just about in two, with most or all of the Defender squads and Farseer hanging back and staying out of trouble while being a nuisance. Meanwhile, the Storm Guardians, Dire Avengers, and Wraithlord will move up more or less in the wake of the Warp Spiders. Finally, the Autarch will act a fool and be jumping all over, either being a distraction or actually popping something before ducking away again.

There are a few tweaks for me to consider, including adding another 10 guardians and heavy weapon at the expense of something, dropping my slightly absurd Autarch, or swapping out various weapon combos.  I did just get an Avatar, who I could bring, but I'm hesitant to do so because I really don't know what role he would play other than walking up next to the Wraithlord and attracting all sorts of fire. I'm pretty undecided about all of the weapons platforms, leading me to the probably flawed premise of having a little bit of everything. That said, I'll be facing two fairly different opponents at the same time, and I want to try as many odd ideas I've been toying with as I can.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I would prefer to not run the entire army as proxies either as that gets a little confusing and just generally doesn't look as nice on the table.