40K Friday: Eldar Update - Guardians, Fast Attack, Heavy Support

Ah, 2nd Edition's subtle packaging

With the arrival of the Wraithknight and a new Wraithlord I had some serious thinking to do. Once again I found myself questioning whether to continue my old never-fully-completed Eldar paint scheme or go with a traditional Iyanden paint job, splitting my Eldar forces into multiple armies. I've agonized over this before here and here and I need to get to a final decision before any more paint hit the models. I thought about it more, re-examined what I had and what I wanted to do with it and decided to keep the old aqua and pink scheme for the new stuff too. Part of it is to give me options for guardians, warlocks, and jetbikes that I already have, but most of it is to keep my guys clearly "my" guys and the off-the-shelf paint scheme just is not as interesting to me. I may pick up some Iyanden-painted units down the road as a shared ally force for me and Apprentice Blaster, but it's not a high priority.

Besides all the wraith stuff outlined last time I also figured out that I have roughly 20 guardians so with some renewed painting efforts I should have the option to field the guardians as 10 + 10 with support weapons in each, or 20 with support weapons. I don't have to use them - I still like my "Non-Guardians" army idea - but I do at least have the option if I need to make an Eldar gunline for some reason.

Fast Attack is an area I am lacking and one that would help with my currently all-footdar army.

• I sorted through things and figured out I have 5 jetbikes - how did I miss that? So I picked up a 6th jetbike (that's him up at the top) to give me the 3+3 or 6 in one option to compliment the ghost warriors. 
• I also have a pair of Vypers and although they are not highly regarded I am thinking about picking up a 3rd to make the full set since they are 3 to a slot. That makes me more jet-ish than Apprentice Blaster's Saim-Hann force. Now to decide how to arm them ... 
• I want options here so I found some inexpensive Swooping Hawks too. I expect they will see quite a bit of use.

For Heavy Support I now have the wraithknight, some wraithlords, two dark reaper squads, and the Iyanden Falcon (there's a good ship name). Long term a a second wraithknight is probably in the cards but not right now - I want to play this army some first. I'd like to add a Fire Prism too at some point but that's another long-term goal. For now I just need to paint them up. I have the wraithseer kit for one of the wraithlords so I will probably use that one as my warlord under the Iyanden army rules. So for now Heavies will be Wraithknight + Wraithlord and either a second Wraithlord or a squad of Reapers.

Now this is not an optimized force for the current online meta of 40K, but as they say "you go to war with the army you have". I'm going to get these guys built and painted and add a few more things I consider critical. Top of the list is a couple of additional wraithguard squads and a couple of wave serpents for them to ride in. That will liven things up considerably.