Battle Reports - 4th (5th) of July Battle, 2013

My buddy Dave over at Ex Fide Vivo and I usually throw down for a game of 40k over the 4th of July weekend each year, though in this case it'll actually be on the 5th due to some commitments with the band. I spent some time setting up the table and pulling out the army, and figured I'd snap a few pre-game pics!

Here's the 2000 point Eldar army I'll be fielding:

HQ
Farseer
Wraithseer
2 Warlocks (1 w/Singing Spear, 1 w/Witchblade)

Troops
10 Dire Avengers
10 Guardian Defenders
10 Corsairs (Storm Guardians)
5 Wraithblades

Elites
6 Firedragons w/ Exarch
6 Striking Scorpions w/Exarch

Fast Attack
1 Crimson Hunter Exarch

Heavy Support
1 Wraithknight
1 Falcon (Scatter Laser, Pulse Laser)

Dedicated Transports
2 Wave Serpents (1 w/Brightlances, 1 w/Starcannons)

1994 points

Dave is bringing his Blood Angels, so I fully expect to be carved into little chunks in short order. No better than the poncy, pointy-eared gits deserve, I suppose! Heh.

Surprising absolutely no one, I opted for an urban themed table. When I lay out a table for a game, I usually go diagonally, it helps give the impression that the battlefield extends off in every direction. It also helps to break up sight lines across the table moreso than a perpendicularly arranged layout would. One of the tenets that I follow is "start old and build up" which means I'll place terrain in the following order: Rivers > Hills > Roads > Buildings. In a future post where I'll actually have all those terrain types on the table I'll do a more thorough explanation, but suffice it to say I started off by laying out a grid of roads after which I laid out the buildings. I'll usually put the largest/tallest buildings in the center of the table, then work outward from there using smaller and smaller pieces. After that I'll start putting in the ground clutter/visual fluff - at the moment I've just done a few craters, but there will be fencing and vehicles and barricades and such by the time we kick off!

A shot from the other side of the table also gives a view into the churning mass of hobby stuff that's in various stages of done-ness, while the Closet of Doom looms just off to the left out of frame. I do like having a nice open airy room to work on hobby stuff three seasons out of the year, but it certainly does get murderously hot up there in the summertime. We're planning on kicking off around 8-9am to try and get done before the temperature soars and all our miniatures melt! I don't plan on doing a full-blown battle report, but there will be pics to follow - since Dave's army is completely painted and mine is nearly so, there should be some cool shots (of me getting my butt kicked)!