"The Great Fall" 40k League update and some general thoughts!

Howdy folks!

The DC gamer fall league known as "The Great Fall" has started up. I am running a bit behind and actually have yet to play my first two games even though we are in week 3. I am planning on knocking out several of the games early next week so sit tight for some battle reports!

I thought I would toss up the specific list I plan to use for the list locked games. For those who don't know we are allowed to play the first two games with pretty much what ever we want (the only requirement being that we use our chosen primary detachment). But for games 3 through the finals my list is set to be:

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Warlord; Fearless)
   1 Shard of Anaris

1 Eldrad Ulthran

1 Warlock Council
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

6 Swooping Hawks

2 Dark Reapers  (Reaper Launcher (Starshot))
   1 Dark Reaper Exarch (Reaper Launcher (Starshot); Night Vision; Fast Shot)

1 Commander (HQ) [Tau],  (Plasma Rifle x1; Vectored Retro-Thrusters; Stimulant Injector; Shield Generator; Neuroweb System Jammer; Onager Gauntlet; Puretide Engram Neurochip; Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite; XV8-02 Crisis 'Iridium' Battlesuit; Feel No Pain; Fleet; Hit & Run)

1 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Troops) [Tau]
   10 Kroot [Tau]
   1 Kroot Hounds [Tau]

1 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Troops) [Tau]
   10 Kroot [Tau]
   1 Kroot Hounds [Tau]

1 XV104 Riptide (Elite) [Tau],(Twin Linked Fusion Blaster; Early Warning Override; Velocity Tracker; Interceptor; Skyfire*)

1 Imperial Bastion (Emplaced Heavy Bolters x4)
   1 Gun Emplacement (Quad-gun)

It is mostly the same as my NOVA Open list with the only real change being that I upped it to 2k by adding the Shard of Anaris and some extra troops. I expect that this will do fairly well but I have some changes I was just considering. I really would like to use a wraithknight in this army and I am considering dropping a kroot squad, the hawks, a windrider unit, and some wargear to add one in. I am not sure as I like the hawks and having more troops is always good but then again with the way this list plays I may be better off just dropping down to 4 troops (or dropping a warlock to keep 5 troops). In any case the changes are all fairly minor. Another option is to use the dark eldar allies. However then I end up with:

2000 Pts - Codex: Eldar Supplement - Iyanden Roster

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Warlord)
   1 Soulshrive

1 Farseer (Runes of Witnessing; Eldar Jetbike; Fearless)
   1 Shard of Anaris

1 Warlock Council, 505 pts
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Eldar Jetbike)
   1 Warlock (Singing Spear; Eldar Jetbike)

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

3 Windrider Jetbike Squad

6 Swooping Hawks

1 Wraithknight

2 Dark Reapers (Reaper Launcher (Starshot))
   1 Dark Reaper Exarch (Reaper Launcher (Starshot); Night Vision; Fast Shot)

1 Imperial Bastion (Emplaced Heavy Bolters x4)
   1 Gun Emplacement (Quad-gun)

1 Baron Sathonyx (HQ) [DE]

5 Kabalite Warriors (Troops) [DE]
   1 Venom [DE] (Splinter Cannon; Grisly Trophies; Night Shields)

5 Kabalite Warriors (Troops) [DE]
   1 Venom [DE] (Splinter Cannon; Grisly Trophies; Night Shields)

That is not bad..those venoms allow rerolls on my warlock powers which is useful when rolling on that LD8. But the odds of getting fortune go down quite a bit when you lose out on Eldrads 4th power. I like having both farseers back on jetbikes but I miss Eldrads force weapon and 4th power. I have play-tested and found that both options work quite well but I am just not truly happy with either. I love having the dark eldar elements again (look back in my history and you can see I spent the better part of last year and this year using baron and my dark eldar allies) but the wound soaking power of the commander is amazing. I suppose at some point I'll just have to choose.

Another thought that has been coming up recently is that I would really like to get off of the crutch of playing the seer council. I love the army and I have been playing it since early 4th edition when I started using it as an alternate to playing the dreaded mechdar that ruled the game. I have 6 wave serpents available so perhaps I could revisit the idea of playing a wave serpent mech style army. I watched the BFS finals and saw Mike Brandt use serpents with space wolf allies to great effect. I liked that (it was nice to see something other than 4-5 serpents, 1-2 wraithknights, hawks, and last turn scoring bikes). Anyway..this post is getting far too long so I will shut my trap for now and I promise some quick succession battle reports next week!

-Tsarith