I said I was going to do it, so here it is! This is an attempt to square 7th Edition 40k and the last version of the corsair army list that was playable with the currently available models and turn it into something that could be used fairly in a retrohammer game.

I'm not any kind of rules writer, so this is largely just taking the list from Imperial Armor 11 and combining it with what I could find in the 7th Edition Eldar codex. Here and there, I needed to improvise and make stuff up, because some new units have been added to the Eldar since 7th edition! I am open to feedback - in fact, I would love feedback!

In addition to general feedback, the biggest hurdles between this and a truly playable draft are

1. Pricing various wargear options that I couldn't find modern equivalents to, such as how much should it cost to give an infantryman a man-portable shuriken cannon or d-cannon.
2. Pricing the various Voidscarred "specialist" upgrades.
3. Rangers are currently Troops, despite being Uncertain Allies, because that's the role they play in most Eldar armies, but I am torn about this. Part of me thinks they should be moved over to Elites with the rest of the Uncertain Allies.
4. I need to decide if I want to add ranger shroud runners as an additional Uncertain Allies option (probably I do). And similarly, if I do add shroud runners, should they be Elites like the rest of the Uncertain Allies or Fast Attack, which is the best category base don their traits.

I hope you enjoy reading this, and thanks in advance!

Has anyone got any idea if there's going to be an official way for those of us without 3d printers to get the models. Printing services are really expensive - probably something about the economies of scale not working out to print a couple of minis for me rather than an entire production run at once, I dunno, I don't have a 3d printer - but I'd still love to get some of these minis!

I asked this question over on the Discord but I figured I'd ask it here, too, just to see what happens. If you're building a corsair fleet, which craftworld ships do you want to bring? Dragonship? Wraithship? A couple of Shadowhunters?

And how would you equip it? Lances or batteries? Torpedoes or launch bays?

I know that the answer to this question depends on what's in the rest of your fleet, and in many ways this is a *collection* building question more than a list building question. If you were going to *buy* a craftworld ship or two to add to your corsair fleet, which one and which configuration do you think you'd get the most use out of?

I was recently looking over my collection and I realized that I don't have one of each cruiser as I originally thought - I have two eclipses.

How dumb is this? Can I still make reasonable lists with two eclipses? Or should I prioritize getting my hands on a shadow? Or two?

A few years ago I got a box of assorted minis as a gift, and in it I found almost a full fleet of Eldar corsairs. The only problem is that the two cruisers - one of each - and the battleship are all missing their fins.

Of course I'm happy to pay, but I'm in the US and international shipping is a mess right now. Are there any recasters or 3d printers out there who can help me replace the missing fins so these classic minis can achieve their destiny?

I hate all the cables on Eldar models and I always cut them off. It makes them look too messy, like Imperium tech. It's much more elegant to imagine that their guns have their own power sources or can interface with their armor through their hands.

And I hate the little pointed ears on corsair helmets. Why would they armor their ears? Why is it necessary for others to see that they have little pointed ears on their helmets. It's so dumb. I always shave them off.

Does anyone else have any Eldar hobby quirks to confess, or am I alone?

So I think that the new cogfort looks like a gorgeous and quirky model and I don't imagine that it would take much work to shift it's aesthetic over from whatever the Cities of Sigmar have going on to something that would fit in with the steam tank. Has anyone thought about making The Old World rules for this big boy?

I know that "normal" is a loaded term, so let me explain. One of the trends I've noticed in the last five years or so is more students who don't seem to understand the basic idea of school. So, my context is 7th grade, which means that I fully expect my students to get sidetracked, forget themselves and talk over me, and so on. It seems to me that the last five years have seen an increase in the number of students who take it one step further and respond with hostility and resentment when they are corrected, no matter how straightforward and gentle the correction is, which is a much bigger problem. I can deal with kids who understand what is required of them in school but struggle with impulse control all day - it's a lot harder to deal with kids who don't get it, who are surprised and angry when asked to do basic things like listen to instructions without talking.

This year, so far, is totally different. I still get kids who slip up, but the response is much more appropriate: acknowledging the correction, apologizing, moving on. The sincerity of the apologies vary, as does how much effort it's going to take to actually change the behavior, but the response is basically correct.

I was wondering why and then it hit me - this year's seventh graders were in kindergarten when COVID hit. That means that instead of getting used to one or more full years of school before the rug was pulled out form under them, these kids only had a bit more than half a year of kindergarten before going home. Some of them got to return to their preschools for supervised remote kindergarten, which would have been a welcoming and familiar environment. Plenty of kids don't go to kindergarten at all. Heck, some kids who go to kindergarten aren't really ready for it - for them, lockdown must have been a relief!

Do you think this is the beginning of the end of some negative trends? Can we look forward to the end of the COVID bubble of kids who are badly unprepared for the school environment? Or is this just that my class is full of easier kids this year and I should enjoy it while I've got it?

Here is the background I've written for my corsairs so far. I'm looking for feedback in general, but I'd particularly like to make sure that I'm going in a direction that fits the established lore. I know that's not exactly necessary, but I enjoy the challenge of fitting my stuff into the broader setting - the trouble is that there's so much in the broader setting that that's a hard thing to do by yourself!

Obviously I have more to add, such as backgrounds for characters other than the prince, the personality of his supposed aunt who is a Lugganath autarch, but I want to make sure the basics are solid first.

Qalathi Elu Alstari

More commonly known as the Qalathi Freebooters, the Anhrathe Qalathi Elu Alstari - as the band’s name is approximated in non-Eldar languages - are a small and young (relatively speaking) but highly active corsair band.

The word “qalathi” can be understood as “that which is not forgotten.” In the Aeldari language that concept is very distinct from things that are simply “remembered”. The emotional resonance of that word is one of both sadness and defiance. At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, a better translation might be “that which refuses to be forgotten.” The second half of the band’s name - Elu Alstari - is typically translated as “freebooter”, though other possibilities include mercenaries, freelancers, thieves, or despoilers. In many craftworlds, referring to an Eldar as an elu alastarn is a grave insult, but these pirates wear the epithet with pride.

History

The true history of the Qalathi Freebooters is difficult to discern, thanks to its leader and founder’s known history of exaggerations and lies. The first confirmed mention of Quen Barquen and his band is a mere several centuries ago, making them young indeed by Aeldari standards, when Quen Barquen began recruiting on Craftworld Lugganath. However, at this time the Qalathi Freebooters already possessed a cruiser and a squadron of destroyers.

Members

Quen Barquen

The leader of the Qalathi Elu Alastari, Quen Barquen, is a swashbuckler, a fabulist and a storyteller, so it's impossible to say which elements of his biography are true and which are not. His claims about his background range from the unlikely but tame (he was born on a corsair ship to a former Drukhari father and an outcast from Craftworld Lugganath) to the extraordinarily unlikely (his father is Asdrubael Vect's secret child, his aunt on his mother's side is highly placed in Lugganath's military hierarchy). His stories about his exploits and accomplishments also run the gamut from the possible to the wildly improbable.

Physically, Quen Barquen is stocky and powerfully built for an Eldar, though still very tall and slim by Human standards. He has an intense and emotive face, lavender hair, and purple eyes. Quen Barquen takes to the field in heavy armor, ad

Quen Barquen is known for his friendliness to non-Eldar. Many non aboard his ships. According to Quen Barquen, in his adolescence he was betrayed and marooned by a vicious corsair captain and ultimately rescued by a Rogue Trader, whom he served for decades until the Human was killed as the result of political machinations within the Imperium. Quen Barquen claims that these events left him with a lasting fondness for Humans, but a smoldering grudge against the Imperium.

The corsair prince's boasting has some purpose. He is a master of manipulating his own story, making sure that he is feared enough throughout any region where he sets up his fleet that he can take most prizes without a fight. Sometimes his targets will kill their own officers and mutiny rather than fight Quen Barquen's corsairs. While it's true that, like any pirate, Quen Barquen has had to slaughter his share of spacefarers to ensure that his targets have something to be afraid of, it's likely that the tales of his prowess and atrocities have been cultivated and very carefully exaggerated.

Allies and Enemies

Quen Barquen has a particular hatred for the Imperium of Man, though not - he is quick to stress - for Humans as a species, whom he claims to admire. He seems to enjoy antagonizing both Craftworlders and Drukhari, but it is clear that when the chips are down he favors the earnest, if somewhat rigid, Asuryani over the cruel dark-kin of Commorragh. Like many corsairs, Quen Barquen enjoys a warm reception in the ports of Lugganath, where he recruited many of his initial followers, and can call on them for military aid. While visiting Lugganath, he met and befriended Harlequins, at least one of which has joined his band. Quen Barquen shares his species’ hatred of Chaos, and is happy to prey on ships controlled by Chaoas whenever it is convenient, but he views stopping at Chaos-controlled ports to sell his prizes as a matter of courage and pride.

I'm revisiting the background for my corsairs and I'm looking for inspiration, so I'd love to read about your guys.

Obviously these would have to be fan-made, but nevertheless, what Armies of Infamy would you want to see for the Vampire Counts in the Old World?

Personally, I would love to see something like the old Von Carstein army list, with some limitations but the addition of living human troops drawn from the Empire army list. That's one that I'm trying to make.

What else? A savage vampire army made of Strigoi and ghouls? Other vampire bloodline armies?

Hi all. I was playing Vampire Counts at the tail end of WHFB, just in time to rebase them for Age of Sigmar, and now I'm putting them back on squares to use them in the Old World. I am still a little dubious about the long term fate of the legacy armies, but I'm not really using them for Age of Sigmar anyway, and between work and having a kid, I don't know how long it's going to be before I can set out to get a big army fully painted... but these guys are painted and ready to go! So I'm going to go for it. I don't know if my Vampire Counts are going to fully supplant my Empire army, but my Empire army is still mostly in boxes and these guys will be able to hit the table in a couple of weeks, once I get some bases and trays. So... I'm very excited to be back.

Here's my problem: for some reason, I have a last-generation plastic zombie dragon almost fully painted... but I have vampire rider to put on him. I don't know what happened to it. Maybe I used it for something else? Maybe the bits are just lost.

So I was wondering if anyone has a recommendation for a replacement rider I could get without breaking the bank. Old metal Fantasy-style riders are ridiculously expensive, and most of what I find when I search are reasonably cool vampire-looking characters modeled riding on horses, and I don't want to have to cut and scrape to remove them. I could get something printed, but I don't have my own printer, so finding a third party model for sale somewhere is probably more economical than buying an STL and then finding a service to print it in resin and ship it to me.

Has anyone got any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

So, I don't know if you've been watching Strange New Worlds, but in SNW 3x09 and more recently in SNW 4x02, they have introduced the idea of Division 12 - the body that Starfleet uses to actively investigate unexplained phenomenon. They are Starfleet's ghost hunters, looking into spooky things that sensor scans can't explain. When the Space Weirdo is identified as an anaphasic entity that consumes human neurological energy, that's not their department. When the ship escapes without ever figuring out what the problem was (or, you know, doesn't escape, but there are logs), Division 12 are the ones who look into it.

It hasn't been long since Division 12 was introduced, but has anyone had a chance to try using them in a game? Or plan to? Or even have any ideas for how you would?

Personally, I'm enchanted by the idea of some Division 12 stories, so I'd love to read what you all are thinking about.

I have a question about Battlefront Valkyrie - Fat Dragon Games' 3d printable space combat game - and I am hoping that someone here who has played the game can answer it.

What first drew me to the game was the granularity of the ships having pools of energy that you could spend to buff up their stats - that and the Star Trek adjacent ship designs. This seemed like a system that would create a lot of really interesting tactical choices. However, as I read more, I saw that the ship profiles inverted one of the usual premises of space navy games. Typically, cheap small ships are fast and maneuverable and big powerful ships are slower and clumsier. This theme tends to make sure that your small ships have a role to play. They aren't just there to soak up points, they also do flanking maneuvers or rush out to score objectives in ways that your "better" ships can't. While you could play a skewed list of big slow ships or a horde of tiny fast ships, a balanced fleet needs some of both. That's how most space navy games are designed.

In Battlefront Valkyrie, though the big expensive powerful ships are also faster. I am concerned that this creates a situation where the small ships basically have no role. There's no benefit to having any number of smaller ships - you can get everything, speed and power, by simply using as many big ships as you can afford.

Is there anyone out there who has actually played this game who can let me know how it goes? Is this a real problem, or does a different dynamic emerge in play?