Eldar War Walker

More chicken looking than the Sentinel.

"This is it. You all know me, so I'll just say this as simple as I can. If it's our time to die, it's our time. All I ask is, if we have to give these bastards our lives, WE GIVE 'EM HELL BEFORE WE DO IT!!!"

– Matrix Revolutions

A War Walker is basically what you get if you try walking on stilts to a battlefield while trying to fire two guns at once and not get hit yourself. Also notable for being a blatant rip off of Zentradei battle pods from the Macross universe.

While this above opening does mock a little, it is basically what the Eldar War Walker looks like. The official position from Games Workshop is that they are "used in rough terrain, to scout out enemy positions". Although why then a faster jetbike isn't a better option is not disclosed...

It looked truly silly in the past when it was basically two legs with a gun on each side and the pilot was hideously exposed (I don't care if you say there is some sort of shield there, it still looks like the guy will get sniped in no time). Now that the model has been updated for the better and comes with a cockpit to cower in it looks a hell of a lot better. Not perfect, but definitely an improvement.

Oh, and it comes with a variety of heavy weapons which, when you combine them in squads of three, makes them only half-bad.

How it used to look. And you thought the Dreadknight looked bad.

Another Perspective

The Eldar almost exclusively travel by utilizing the Webway, which is best described by using the analogy of veins and arteries. You have the thicker “main” veins which are allegedly big enough to transport an entire craftworld, which then branch off into smaller and smaller ones as you go further out to the extremities, which in this case is the edges or less traveled areas of the old Eldar Empire. The War Walker is what the Eldar use when the Webways get too small for something like a Falcon (don’t look at the comparative sizes of the table top models since GeeDubs' stance on realistically proportioned vehicles could be politely described as “out of proportion so they don’t take up the whole table” and impolitely described as “utterly fucked”) but more firepower is required than what can be brought to bear by jetbikes or Vypers. Also used in particularly rough terrain, because have you ever seen that bit from The Return of the Jedi when the Stormtroopers are on their version of jetbikes Speeder bikes and they crash into trees while distracted? Space Elf reflexes aren’t infallible, especially when you are being chased by a tentacled space beastie du jour or a Land Speeder.

On the table they really aren’t a bad choice. 60 points buys you a 10/10/10 2 hull point walker with a 5++ and two Shuriken Cannons with a choice to upgrade either of these to more gribby weapons. War Walkers are also carriers of ground-to-air weapons, so they tend to see some use against lists that feature flyers predominately. The biggest problem with War Walkers is that they compete for the heavy support slots against things like Wraithlords and Dark Reapers. And I mean, really, are you going to take a bunch of chicken walkers or a ‘mech powered by the pure rage of a ghost?

Black Guardian War Walkers

Slightly more badass than your average chicken walker.

These are the elite War Walkers from Ulthwé and like the Black Guardians from their Craftworld, is differentiated from others because of its black paint and is thus, XTREME! Originally designed as scout machines, War Walkers carry a mighty payload of firepower for such lithe and compact vehicles. Small enough to traverse the webway, they emerge onto the battlefield with all guns blazing. They are a highly trained Ulthwé Strike Force version of the Vyper Squadron, forming part of the Ulthwé standing army rather than the more common militia forces on other Craftworlds. Oh yeah, and did we mention that they tend to emerge from the webway and deploy into positions where they can use their anti-tank weaponry to greatest effect? Because they might as well be a Wasp Assault Walker, which is clearly an outright superior version of the standard war walker.

Seriously, these are the anti-armor to the vanilla War Walker's scout vehicle. Their relationship is kind of like the Imperial Scout Sentinel to that of the Armoured Sentinel, one is great for scouting and having cheap shots whilst the other is a fast and mobile tank hunter. These Black War Walkers are therefore armed with a Starcannon, Eldar Missile Launcher, Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon or Bright Lance for maximum carnage. For some reason, the Harlequins have a knack in borrowing some of these into their army, maybe because they lack so much armored support that Ulthwé took some pity and decided to help.