But...but I thought the Eldar were a dying race?

 ...snicker...

o/

I had intended to bring my Storm Wardens and a few ANGRY MAHREENZ! to the FLGS this past Saturday, but RTVoril asked  if I would bring my Exodites so we could have a 2v2, Eldar vs. Marines game. Sounded good to me, as marines (in one form or another) are always available to shoot. In building a list, my Exodites clock in at about 1300 points, however I filled out the army with some allied Corsairs from the FW list (i.e.: the remnants of my Saim-Hann contingent). Whilst some may complain about FW armies being unbalanced, compared to the new Eldar codex, the Corsairs have been reduced to 2nd rate soldiers. :-/

Our opponents were an unholy alliance of Screech's Thousand Sons (of  Bitches) and (the 'new guy') Matt's Ultramarines. I presume that those two sides were about to square off when the Eldar Warhost consisting of Craftworld Alaitoc, Exodites, and the 'Victim's Eternal' (a splinter-pirate Faction of the Saim-Hann) arrived to eliminate the 'Mon'keigh'. Whether you're a Loyalist' or a 'Traitor' is irrelevant in the face of complete annihilation...

The scenario was the new 'auto tie' (Emprah's Will...I think), short table edge deployment zones, both objectives granted sky fire, conveniently no one had any flyers. The marines won the deployment roll and opted to go first, first turn was night fight, and we failed to steal the initiative. As per my pseudo-battle report norm, what follows is my typical photo dump with a vague commentary of the highlights.

The Eldar deployment. 

The Mon'Keigh deployment. Aside from two small SM dev squads in the backfield, everything was either deep striking or in a transport.

While not the best angle, these are some of Matt's superbly painted Ultramarines. At the tender age of 18, he claims to not be an art student, however we've all suggested he consider the idea...

Under the cover of darkness (no really, it is dark...) the marines advance. Turn one didn't amount to much other than the Eldar claiming first blood via a rhino, and then killing 7 of the 10 Tactical marines that were inside, for the loss of a Dragon Knight or two.

Turn two, the Ironclad's drop pod arrived after the chapter serf in the strike cruiser above forgot to launch it in turn one, and two Landspeeders drop into the backfield. The Ironclad incinerated most of my dire avengers, while the speeder's 2 multi-meltas only stunned and immobilized the wave serpent. However in point blank range of a horde of shuriken catapults, the speeders were short lived.

Turn three the Librarian and his Termie escorts arrived via Deep Strike. Despite a relic that gave him a 4+ Deny the Witch, he rolled a 1 when a Warlock cast 'Horrify' on the squad reducing their LD to 7! The point was moot however as EVERYTHING in range  opened up on them, and wiped the squad out!

'Supa Fly!' My Autarch on his Griffon (jet bike) arrived via deep strike, and proceeded to piss all over the CSM's psychic power cards. Speaking of Chaos, somewhere during the game, my Farseer cast DOOM! on the CSM lord's unit of Possessed. However he denied the witch AND killed the Farseer with the Witch-Eater boon. Bastard!

Once again the Harlequins prove to be useless, fleeing at the first few casualties...why are these so damned expensive and NOT able to get a venom (which in the original fluff was a Harlequin transport)??? The soul blaze marker followed them around but never did anything.

RTVorils' Impressively painted Avatar. He held the guardian horde battle line in place whilst dispatching the Ironclad, Drop Pod, and a few others...

The Harlequins rally on a snake eyes roll, no doubt due to the mockery of the Alaitoc warriors around them. in the end it was a moot point as they never really accomplished anything...

Supa Fly! Charged and dispatched one Dev squad which was in that ruin with his laser lance (i.e.: those big fucking claws), though he took a wound on the way in. 

The Tac Marines (at some point)  multi-charged the Rangers and a squad of Exodite guardians, resulting in an almost game long tar pit of tied combats. My corsair prince with his power sword charged in, but with a strength of three only added to the collective failure...

The scouts finally arrived and outflanked right behind a fire prism, bolters blazing! When the smoke cleared however they were astonished to find that in true scout fashion, they damaged nothing!

The Ironclad and Landraider dispatched, the Eldar line starts to trundle forward. At this point, Screech was crying for his IG Basilisks which were at home.

To quote a rebel pilot out of Return of the Jedi: "There's too many of them!"

The scouts are about to pay for their failure...though they did manage to hang on for 2 rounds of intense fire...

The Eldar right flank advances past the 'still-suffering-little-to-no-casualties-tarpit'  although I think the Rangers had fled from the fight by this point.

The grey squad of the Thousand Sons (of Bitches) had steadily withered under fire from the Dragon Knights who were slowly suffering the same fate especially with the hellbrute helping. However Supa Fly swooped in and quickly finished them off!

That task complete, he went on by the Hellbrute to save his minions from the tar pit with the tactical squad.

Edit: Found the 2 missing photos, drop box 'dropped them' practically off of my monitor! Anyways:

However having foolishly fled said tar pit (and without a chance to regroup) the remaining tactical marines find themselves in a most unenviable crossfire and are annihilated!

To the objective!!!

Then the long rush across the table begins, whilst Eldar foot sloggers can easily reach up to 12" per turn, its doubtful they would have reached the objective by turn 7. Luckily the point was moot. Thus, at the bottom of turn 6,the Marines ran up the white flag. Screech had just 2 rhinos and the Hellbrute, and Matt had only a pair of Devastators left.

The Eldar had First Blood, their Objective, and Slay the Warlord, where the Marines came away with nothing. They had killed our Warlord (Supa Fly!) till Matt realized that there was no way his lascannon devastator could have seen him. The angle he was at on the fourth floor obscured those giant wings! Since there were a few floors in the way, he graciously allowed Supa Fly's resurrection.

All in all it was a fun, if loooong game, as 3k games so often are.