Dire Avengers Stage 3 plus an Exarch

Another update only a week after the first! Unfortunately its still another month. I feel good today and even though my painting is certainly slow, but its coming along steadily.

Ok, the first set of pictures is my first Dire Avenger Exarch. This is a mod I have been considering for a while and I believe it is going to come out looking good.



And here is a look at the model staged with the Tau held by the neck. I did not stick them together yet, I will do that after painting. The arm holding the Tau is resting against the body.



And a close look at the Tau and arm alone.

Ok, I have gotten more done than just the Exarch model. I also have put down some grey/white/green on the 18 Avengers. Here are some pics.

Squad 1 - From a tabel top view distance.


Squad 2 from a table top view distance.


Here is a close-up

And here is a table top view of both squads from the back.


Another Close-up view of an Avenger.


The Eldar get in their first game!
I also had a combat patrol (400 point) game with my son and his Orc's this weekend. This was my first game of 5th edition and I have some thoughts overall. First, let me post the lists:

Eldar:
10 man Warp Spider Squad
9 Warp Spiders
1 Warp Spider Exarch with 2x death spinner, power blades, withdraw
9 man Dire Avenger Squad
9 Dire Avengers
9 man Dire Avenger Squad
9 Dire Avengers


Orc's
1 Wierdboy
10 Boys
8 boys with Slugga/Choppa
1 boy with Big Shoota
1 Nob with Power claw/Slugga
1 Truck w/ Big Shoota, Grot Rigger, Red Paint Job, Boarding Ramp, Reinforced Ram
10 Boys
8 with Slugga/Choppa
1 with big Shoota
1 Nob with Power claw/Slugga

We played an Annihilation mission, since we both had 3 kill points. It was an overwhelming vistory to the Eldar, but a well fought battle from the Orcs. The game went to the bottom of turn 4.

A couple observations for 5th edition.
1. The missions in the book are built for a 6x4 table with full FOC armies.
2. Wound allocation prior to rolling saves actually helps more than I thought.
3. The new vehicle damage chart is not as bad as I thought.

Let me expand a bit on points 2 and 3. On point 2, there were 2 turns when I unleashed shots on his orc units. I unloaded 18 shots on the an 11 man orc squad from the avengers. 18 shots translated to 13 wounds. 13 wounds were assigned as follows:
8 wounds to Boys
1 wound to Big Shoota
1 wound to Nob
1 wound to Wierdboy
2 more wounds to boys.

This ended up killing 3 boys.

Now I unloaded the spiders on the same unit. 22 shots translated to 19 wounds. 19 wounds were allocated as follows:
5 wounds to Boys
1 wound to Big Shoota
1 wound to Nob
1 wound to Wierdboy
5 wounds to Boys
1 wound to Big Shoota
1 wound to Nob
1 wound to Wierdboy
3 wounds to Boys

Final tally was:
13 Saves to the boys
2 saves to the big shoota
2 saves to the Nob
2 saves to the Wierdboy

End result, Boys, Big shoota, and nob fail thier saves.
Wierdboy makes 1 save and stays alive.

In a similar turn-out in another round of shooting, the Nob of the other squad stayed alive with 1 wound and but ended up running off the table.

Now, regarding my comment 3 about the vehicle tables. I will admit that I was firing on an open topped vehicle so that made better. My death spinners can now penetrate vehicles, even though they get -1 for being an AP - weapon. Overall, my penetrating hits were rolling at -1 on the chart, which means no Explode result, but a Wrecked result was possible. Glancing hits are at the normal -2, so Immobilised was the best I could get. Overall, I think warp spiders will be good for vehicle hunting due to the torrent of fire they can dump out. With Str 6 and 22 shots from a full squad, thats a whole bunch of chances for damage. Then, its just a matter of adding up a lot of Weapon Destroyed and Immobilised results to stack them for a wrecked.