A quickie battle report tonight. My Krieg, using the new Assault list in IA 12 faced off against a friend's Necrons, who had incidentally lent me that book and made me crave just such a fight. We played a 2,000 point Dawn of War Relic game. Using the density and random terrain we placed everything and I thought an Archaetech next to my deployment zone would be neat since it was small and if it spat random death, perhaps I could suicide small recyclable units off it. Instead it was a 2 VP objective. With a declared Forlorn Hope placing my special objective in the middle of his deployment zone, it meant the Relic was not as special as it should be. He went first and I tried to seize the initiative just to be contrary, not because I really wanted it.

Turn 1 saw a few Krieg die here and there; no one cared. Some Necrons were turned to paste and the Heavy Mortars once more proved to me their limitless awesomeness by awarding me with First Blood. Yes they're 10 points more, lost accurate, and now have a point less of strength and Gets Hot, but shred and ignores cover on them make up for it. Ask a Necron Warrior. Oh wait; they're dead and not getting up :evilgrin:.

Turn two saw Necrons deep strike in all over my deployment zone and most of my three Infantry Platoons vanished. To the casual observer it looked liked a turn three tabling was in my future. Making full use of the No Mercy and Dispersed Advance orders I opened fire with now assault 2 lasguns and laspistols across my lines before charging in and finding that my Warlord trait of Co-ordinated Assault gave me that extra bit I needed to reach the Necron lines with everything I threw at them. My Warlord and his unit hit the Wraiths and Destroyer Lord waving their Banner of Martyrdom. The assault phase saw drawn combats or no one caring about losing. Close enough for now.

Turn three saw two of my Infantry Platoons wiped out in his turn and I was happy as they came right back on from Ongoing Reserves to plasma and melta him some more before he turned around and killed the melta one and finished off the third platoon that had actually deployed. He also slew my Warlord when his Destroyer Lord acted all cool with his Warscythe to end combat, but I reminded my foe that my banner meant I too got a VP from having my Warlord slain in the assault. His Lord then took a wound from dangerous terrain as he moved out of it, obviously turning right into some rebar after killing everything that failed to hurt him, and made a mental note to format the memories of the witnesses. I had the new platoons come gleefully, relatively speaking, strolling on to their death and tied up some Destroyers with the remnants of the plasma platoon so they couldn't assault my Heavy Mortars who were too busy on Warrior removal duty. The Destroyers had clearly reached their preset kill limit as that combat dragged on through the end of the game with no real change from the onset. My Rapier also shot down the Heavy Support Cylon Raider as punishment for blowing up a pair of Leman Russ tanks.

His Immortals had tried to grab the Relic, but my Heavy Mortars blasted five of them to unrepairable ruin, pinned and routed the survivors. The following turn, they tried again and were bombed again, but this time passed both Ld tests by rolling their leadership exactly. My Grenadiers had barreled forward through some wreckage in their Storm Chimera to near the Relic that I had dragged a few inches closer to me earlier in the game. and my foe had blasted the 75 point transport before he assaulted the guys who climbed out and tried to block my path with the Wraiths. I walked around them through dangerous terrain thanks to Dispersed Advance and a cheerful disregard for the well being of my own men. Since a single Immortal had been close enough to claim the objective, I ran to contest the Relic, thus shifting the outcome to the Archeaotech objective as I was too far from my 2 VP Forlorn Hope objective and thus granted him a VP for having failed to claim it. Thus my First Blood VP was matched. He had slain my Warlord in the assault, so my Regimental Standard's upgrade had essentially negated that.

Therefore it meant that I had to inflict two unsaved wounds on his Sypder contesting the 2 VP objective that had changed my entire plan upon learning what it was. A power sword from an officer chopped off one and the rest of the attacks wounded it four times. The odds were in my favor, but passing a quartet of 3+ saves is really common place so the entire outcome rested on his roll; his success would make the game a draw, failure would grant me the win. He failed two saves and I won as the game then ended.

A quick calculation showed that my foe killed about 4,000 points of Death Korps thanks to my Unstoppable Advance rule. All I had to do was what I did; keep him off the Relic and make sure my Infantry Platoons showed up, did some damage at full strength, and then promptly died/fled off table before my next turn so I could do it again. The extra firepower I got from that revolving door policy meant that I could wear him down on my left where the objective I focused upon sat since it was close enough a new Platoon could reach it fairly easily while he was tempted by the main Relic I had fortuitously dragged a crucial three inches closer to my side as I had just reached contesting range. It was a close game that from turn two onward saw me end my foe's turn with the two hard as nails artillery units protected from assault (often at the cost of some Infantry Platoon or parts thereof) and maybe a handful of other models on the table. A few passing people commented how I had no chance to win with most of my army slain, but as my foe aptly stated, Krieg has better Resurrection Protocols than the Necrons. Indeed, the Death Korps of Krieg make for better Necrons than the Necrons do; they are less emotional, more willing to sacrifice themselves when ordered, are less apt to flee (unless doing so is part of the plan), come back more reliably and in greater numbers, and are clearly the more relentless and soulless robots, plus you can top it off with the fact that they are devoted servants of the divine God-Emperor and not some ancient heathen xenos in need of a righteous purging :D.

This is a very close game between my dark eldar and my friends ork army. The mission was emperors will, with vanguard strike deployment.

http://skulkers-surprise.blogspot.co...orks-1500.html

hope you enjoy.

Hello!

With the new Eldar codex out, I decided to have my old Eldar list go out with a bang. So a few friends and I made the trek to Austin and entered into the War Games Con GT. I brought the following list;

HQ
Eldrad
Wraith Seer w/ D. Cannon

Troops
10 wraith guard w/ warlock, conceal, spirit seer
3 guardian jetbikes w/ shurriken cannon

Fast
Nightwing interceptor
Nightwing interceptor

Heavy
Wraith Lord w/ bl, eml 2 flamers
Wraith Lord w/ bl, eml, 2 flamers

Fortification
Aegis w/ quad gun

Allies
Baron Sarthonix
10 Kabalite warriors w/ DL, sybarite, power weapon

Total: 1847

The trick that the list is based around, is putting Eldrad and the baron in with the Wraithguard, then casting fortune on them, and the wraith seer giving them deliverance. 2+ invulnerable with a re-roll on the baron, a base 4+ cover save with conceal and stealth from the baron. If a wound gets by that they have a 4+ fnp. All that on a majority toughness 6 unit.

I know from experience that my list has two major weaknesses. The first is that the bikes and Kabalite warriors are soft targets and relatively easy to kill. This can make objective games problematic at times. Second, helldrakes are a hard counter, as they can get around the Baron and ignore armor and cover. That being said, the wraith guard and wraith lords are a tough nut for many armies to crack.

Round 1
Mission: crusade/relic
Deployment: dawn of war.

5 objectives worth 3 vp's each. Relic is worth 7. Additional points for slay the warlord, first blood, and line breaker.

My opponent was Trent with Nurgle CSMs.

HQ
Lord w/ blight grenades, MoN, melta bombs, power maul, VotlW, bike.
Daemon Prince w/ armor, wings, MoN, Black Mace

Troops
6 Plague Marines w/ champion, icon of despair, 2 plasma, combi plas, melta bomb, power fist
12 cultists w/ auto gun, flamer
12 cultists w/ auto gun, flamer

Fast Attack
7 bikes, icon of despair, MoN, VotlW, 2 melta, champ, pw sword, combi melta
Helldrake w/ flamer
Helldrake w/ flamer

Heavy
3 obliterators w/ MoN
Predator w/ 3 las cannon
Mauler fiend w/ tendrils

Total: 1845

First off, Trent was a terrific opponent, and was great sport. He got to go first and more or less advanced forward. I focused on his mauler fiend. However night fighting and the dice saw it make it through.

Round 2, On his turn the daemon prince came in. I forget to interceptor fire on it. He takes pot shots at me, but my buffs are up. Mauler fails a charge. My reserves come in. I finished off the mauler fiend, and the daemon prince.

Turn 3: helldrake comes in, vectors the wraiths, and flames the warriors. Thanks to over watch, bikes fail charge. My turn I damage the helldrake, kill some bikes and plague marines.

Turn 4: The second helldrake comes in. My warriors are finished off by the bale flamers. My turn I kill a helldrake and wraithseer assaults the plague marines and kills the champion in a challenge. My wraithguard now have the relic.

Turn 5: he retreats his bikes to salvage the kill points and prevent slay the warlord. During his turn, wraith seer wins combat. My turn I kill the last helldrake and his pred. I also take pot shots at one of his cultists who hold an ebjective. My bikes secure an objective.

Turn 6: he takes potshots. On my turn, I try and dislodge his cultists from the objective, but to no avail. Game over at this point.

Objective wise I had him beat at 10-6, plus first blood, and a sizable lead in kill points. So a solid victory for Eldar! Poor Trent had staggered reserves, which allowed me to deal with his flyers piecemeal. He also missed a few key charges. Overall my list performed to spec.

Round 2
Mission: scouring/ crusade
Deployment: vanguard

One 4 point objective center, plus 5 more random point objectives, and 4 3 point object. Additional points for slay the warlord, first blood, line breaker. So 10 objectives total.

My opponent was Paolo with Orks.

HQ
Big Mek w/ ammo runts, shock attack

Troops
30 boys w/ 3 big shootas, nob, pk
25 boys
25 boys

Heavy
Big Guns w/ 3 runts, squig hound
Big Guns w/ 3 runts, squig hound
Big Guns w/ 3 runts, squig hound

Fortification
Aegis defense line w/ quad gun

Allies

HQ
Company Command Squad

Troops
Infantry Platoon w/ platoon command squad, 2 infantry squads, 3 saber defense platforms

Heavy
Manticore

I have seen battle reports about Ork lists like this, but had never seen one in practice before. I was excited to face it.

If memory serves, he went first. He deployed his gun line behind the Aegis, with the manticore hidden behind some ruins. Night fighting helped me weather the initial shooting without taking too much punishment. On my turn I got my buffs up and advanced, starting to whittle down the boy squads, and try taking down the quad gun.

It's hard for me to remember the exact blow by blow, but by turn two my wraithguard blob was in assault with a boy squad. He also rolled box cars on his shock attack gun, but thankfully it scattered and only took out some warriors and my quad gun.

Turn 3, he sent in his 30 ork boy squad to help out with the combat with the wraithguard. I think at this point I also started losing wraith lords to massed fire. On my turn my bikes came in and started strafing an ork squad that was camping an objective. Killing several, then hoping over terrain in the assault phase.

Turn 4, his Orks shoot and kill one bike. I fail leadership and they fall off the table. More shooting at my stuff, I can't remember exactly what I lost this turn, but I know I lost one plane. On my turn the melee continues. My remaining nightwing is strafing guard squads that had made it to other objectives.

Turn 5. At this point I am down to my blob squad, a few warriors, and a nightwing. On his turn my blob squad finishes off the Orks in assault and consolidates onto the center, 4 point objective. My turn my blob squad takes some pot shots at his stuff, and my nightwing attempts to get lucky and break a guard squad to no avail.

Turn 6, he kills my last plane, but can't dent my wraithguard squad. I pot shot hoping for another kill point.

Game ends, I have center objective and one other. He has all but one of the rest, plus first blood. Kill points were 6-3 in his favor plus bonuses for killing my fast attack. Major victory for the Orks.

There were just too many bodies, and too many objectives for me to deal with. He had a great list, and what kill points I gave soaked up a ton of shooting. It was a good game, and a great opponent, so it was all good. I knew objectives could be an issue with my list going in, but I never expected a 10 objective game. The sheer amount of sky fire he had was great, and kept my planes jinking all game. Still, they did their job by drawing away fire. Normally I would rely on wraith lords and the wraith seer to soak up fire and deal with the hordes, but even they couldn't stand for long against all that fire power. I did have fun watching my wraith blob pound through 55 ork boys. It's an excellent list, and I'm sure he did well with it.

Round 3
Mission: purge the alien, emperors will
Deployment: Dawn of War
Additional points for slay the warlord, first blood, line breaker.

My opponent this round was Brent from "Strictly Average" with Necrons.

HQ
Obyron
D. Lord w/ scythe, weave, MSS

Troops
14 Warriors w/ Night Scythe
6 immortals
6 immortals
6 warriors
6 warriors

Elite
C'tan w/ writhing worldscape, gaze of death
10 flayed ones

Fast
6 Wraiths w/ 3 whip coils
3 scarabs

Heavy
Spyder
Spyder w/ particle Beamer
Spyder w/ particle Beamer

Brent was admittedly playing a non- optimized list. Great guy though, and it was a fun game.

I got to go first, got my buffs up, and concentrated fire on the C'tan killing it for first blood. On his turn he spawned scarabs, and more or less advanced forward.

Turn 2, I put some wounds on some spyders, and insta-deathed a wraith. On his turn the D. Lord separated and assaulted the wraith lord, while the wraiths assaulted my Kabalite warriors. The wraith lord died to mind shackle scarabs, the warriors broke, but got away.

Turn 3 most of my reserves come on, and most of my forces focus on removing the scarabs, wounding and removing spyders. My warriors rally, and move back on to the objective. D. Lord is gunned down and doesn't get back up. On his turn, He assaults my wraiths with his wraiths. Oberon and his immortals gun down my bikes.

Turn 4, Nightwings shoot down the nightscythe, the combat continues. My remaining wraith lord/seer joins the fight. On his turn, he drops my warriors down to the sybarite and he runs off the table. The last remaining Necron wraiths die, and I consolidate toward the objective.

Turn 5, I move to the objective, and I need a 3 inch run to claim it. I roll a one. Remaining shooting kills Oberon. He doesn't get back up. Nothing much happens on his turn.

We roll, and the game ends. I am short of holding my objective, he still has his. The sybarite failing his leadership, and rolling short on my run roll nearly seized defeat from the jaws of victory. Fortunately I was far enough ahead on kill points to eek out a minor win. Brent was a great sport, and nearly pulled off a win with his "strictly average" list.

Round 4
Mission: big guns never tire, the scouring.
Objective: Hammer and Anvil
Additional points for slay the warlord, first blood, line breaker.

My opponent for round 4 was a man who goes by the name "Uncle Buck". He ran Blood Angels with IG allies.

HQ
Librarian w/ epistolary

Troops
10 assault marines w/ 2 melta guns, power maul, melta bombs
10 assault marines w/ 2 melta guns, power sword, melta bombs

Elite
Sanguinary priest w/ jump pack, melta bombs

Fast
Baal Predator
Baal Predator

Heavy
Predator w/ las cannon sponsons
Predator w/ las cannon sponsons

Fortification
Aegis line w/ quad gun

Allies

HQ
Company Command Squad w/ hvy weapon team (las cannon ), master of ordnance, master of fleet

Troops
Infantry platoon w/ 5 hvy weapons teams w/ autocannon, 4 infantry squads w/ plasma, platoon command squad

Buck showed up a little late, due to having to collect his army after the display round. As you can see from his army list, that was a lot of models to pick up. Once again it was a 10 objective mission. To make matters worse, all my opponents tanks were scoring, he had combat squaded his assault marines, and a platoon. That is a load of troops at his disposal. The only positive note was that his sky fire was limited to a single quad gun.

Buck seized the initiative, but thankfully night fighting kept much damage from being done. My turn I focus on trying to kill his quad gun.

The specific order of events kind of blur together. His librarian perils once, thanks to Eldrad, and that stops his psychic powers for the game. My bikes get tank shocked off the table by an out flanking predator. His blood angels deep strike in around my aegis. My wraith lords and seer turn back to bail out my Kabalite warriors. The master of ordinance was a constant thorn in my side, ignoring cover and my armor saves. Thankfully FNP mitigates it slightly.

I kill off 3 of the 4 combat squads, a sanguinary priest, his quad gun, and I think one infantry squad for 3 kill points (quad gun doesn't count). I lost my warriors, my bike squad, a nightwing, and a wraithlord. His last remaining combat squad was being tied up by the wraith seer. Time was short, and the game ended at the end of turn 4.

Buck had each tank on an objective, as well as several guard squads holding some. He had bonus points for fist blood and line breaker, and for killing a heavy and fast attack choice. It was a crushing win for him, as I had no objectives or bonus points. If we had a turn 5, I probably would have had 2 to 3 more kill points, and possibly 2 objectives by maybe killing a tank and claiming one with a wraith lord and one with the blob squad, but in the end it wouldn't have been enough. It was the wrong mission against the wrong opponent.

Buck was also a great sport, and seemed to feel bad about how lopsided the game was. I shrugged it off. He had a nice list, and it was perfect for this mission. So far I was 2-2, with both my losses coming against maxed out infantry armies in 10 objective missions. It was something I knew I'd have an issue with, but I didn't know how bad it would be.

This ended day 1. The next morning they split off the top 16 to compete for the GT. Obviously I didn't make the cut, lol. So on to decide the best of the B-listers.

Howdy folks, finally got my Bugeater Tournament Report up, figured some of you might appreciate it! Lots and lots of pictures.

Here's the link.

Feel free to comment here or over there :)

Hey all, so I recently started a blog, and have posted my first ever battle report on it. And it has pictures!

http://talesofthestarstriders.blogspot.com/

My first ever tournament

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Birmingham expo and took part in my first proper tournament (apart from a couple between a large group of friends). It was 1500pts, I was playing Daemons with Chaos Space Marine allies. What follows is what my army list was and a brief summary of each game and how it went.

My army list:

Lord of Change, Mastery 2, 2 greater gifts and 1 lesser gift

Herald of Tzeentch, Mastery level 2, Exalted locus of conjuration, exalted gift (portaglyph or grimier)

11 Pink Horrors

10 Plague bearers with Plague ridden

3 fiends
6 screamers
3 flamers

Soulgrinder of Tzeentch with Phlegm bombardment

Sorcerer, Mastery level 1

9 Chaos Space Marines, 1 meltagun, 1 rhino with a dirge caster

1 heldrake with baleflamer

Game 1: vs. Space Wolves, Crusade, dawn of war deployment

When facing Space Wolves I expected an array of nasty close combat marines with special characters. In stead a faced a lot of marines with heavy weapons, Grimir, a rune priest and marines in a land raider and two rhino’s. It was night fighting turn 1 and my opponents first and probably biggest mistake was trying to steal the initiative and succeeded. A lot of my things were out of 36 inches or benefited greatly from cover. He tried to kill my Lord of Change while it was on the ground and didn’t get far as its greater gifts made it very tough.
My fast units shot forward and he stayed on the defensive. My portaglyph scattered further midfield and did produce daemons initially but did later on. The fiends and screamers did not have a lot of damage output but tied things down long enough for the soul grinder an horrors to lay down some good fire support. My Lord of Change tied up several units by the mere threat of his presence tearing up rhinos, marines and absorbed a lot of firepower. The heldrakes appearance tipped the marines over the edge. Was a glorious victory for chaos. The plague bearers sat on an objective and waved.

Game 2: vs. Grey Knights, Purge the Alien and Hammer and Anvil deployment

If Grey Knights were not enough slogging up the table with hammer and anvil made it worse. The LoC, screamers and fiends made it up the board fine, but cannot cope much on their own. My Lord of Change did not dare enter glide mode and smash his dreadnaughts because they were next to a big unit of knights with force weapons. This and the dreads were able to deny most things that I cast at them. They kept on backing off, and shooting me up. The fiends were bogged down and killed, and when Corteaz and 2 storm talon’s came on things got worse. My heldrake did not turn up until turn 4. Missiles that force perils of the warp on a unit annihilated my horrors. The one good point of the match was my sorcerer instant killing Corteaz in a challenge with his force axe. I should have really deep struck some stuff and gambled. It was all the anti daemon stuff that worried my and his firepower.

Game 3: vs. Imperial Guard with Dark Angel Allies, Big guns never tire and vanguard strike
This was a hard but very enjoyable game. My opponent had two flyers in reserve, and across his corner a massive unit of 50 guardsman with his HQ primaris psyker and a dark angels librarian that made them fearless. There were three objectives. My plague bearers sat in the ruin in my half (2+ cover save), the central one in a temple/ruin and I sent my portaglyph at scattered wildly but was within a couple of turns of the third objective in front of his gun line.
It was nightfigting, I sent the LoC and the screamers zooming to the left, and the fiends and rhino around the central ruin/to the right. Things went badly when the warp storm table reduced my invul saves my one which lost me my heldrake when his lascannons intercepted it and shot it down. However what the chaos gods take away with one hand they give back with another. The next turn the warp storm table ended up replacing his librarian with a herald of my choice, I placed a khorne herald. I then got my rhino with its dirge caster within 6 inches of the 50 man unit on the far right. I then assaulted it on the right with 1 remaining fiend, in the centre with the herald and on the left with the LoC. The result was carnage, which was oa particular insult because he had cast the power which gave him over watch at full BS. The port glyph allowed my to attempt to seize all three objectives which I succeeded in. His reserved were only able to kick me off one successfully and claim it for himself. A hard fought chaos victory.

Game 4 vs. Necrons, The Scouring, Hammer and Anvil

This game was another crushing defeat. I kept out of range and sight using a large LOS blocking terrain in the first turn. His wraiths came forward and took up my attention while his firepower shot me to pieces. I managed to kill off most of the wraiths, and came up with some viable tactics but everything else when against me. The list I put together could just not cope with hammer and anvil vs. firepower heavy armies.

Game 5 vs. Marines, a combination of the Emperor’s will and the Relic, with dawn of war deployment

I was facing a bike heavy army. So since I got to choose the table edge I picked the deployment zone with the only 3 storey building and placed my objective at the top of it. The was a very interesting game because his bikes quickly seized the relic and I learned that bikes could turbo boost 6 inches away in the shooting phase because the relic can be moved no more than 6 inches per phase, I never realised that that could happen. My fiends and screamers easily caught them, but with their HQ and high toughness I could not reduce them fast enough. Even when my marines joined in they lost combat and I rolled dreadfully. My LoC spent a couple of turns destroying his marines in a drop pod that threatened my plague bearers on the objective.
Because I spent too much time trying to obtain the relic early on and ended up playing a game of chase the bikes with my Lord of Change and heldrake. Because of the heldrake he tried to line up to minimise damage from the bale flamer, but then the LoC would position itself along the line with a bold of change. My portably spewed out horrors to later make a run for his objective and were later shot to pieces (which was quite funny). His whirlwind failed to shift my plague bearers off my objective with his ignore cover bombardment. In the end it was a draw. I had my objective, I destroyed any marines near his objective and killed off all but his HQ near the relic. But he had first blood, line breaker and realising that he needed to kill my HQ for the draw did hit best to shoot up my Lord of Change when in landed in case I had to assault his bikes. My Soulgrinder had to stand in the way is remaining bikes they were line braking to stop them making a last turn move and turbo boost across the fielf to his objective.

Thoughts on my List

LoC: this guy was great. His powers shot things up, his greater gifts made him very durable, and he kicked ass in assaults. He drew and absorbed a lot of attention and was able to give it out.

Screamers and fiends: these guys attracted a lot of attention early as they shift across the field. But they need to work in tandem with other units in some sort of strategy. There damage output was just not enough. I may return to a unit of 3 screamers that hunt tanks.

Flamers: they had there moments (annihilating 2 units of veterans in match 3). Could not get them into a good position against the rest. Cheap for a unit of 3 though

Marines: Fairly okay. Not being fearless was a pain. They were not particularly outstanding but they had a good go at the job that I set them. I fairly reliable, durable, if nothing special about them unit.

Horrors: worked well, I am reasonable well versed at making sure that what I target their psychic powers at dies. Their fire support and the herald put out a fair bit of firepower that works very well with prescience.

Portaglyph: A must. The tactical potential this offers is great. When you are running low on troops it can spew them out. Allows you to claim/contest more objectives than normal. Most people who I face forget that they can shoot at it and concentrate on the nastier elements of the army. When someone did decide to shoot at it, having 12 AV all round and a 5++ protected it well.

Plaguebearers: I love these guys. Find them a ruin with an objective and sit them behind it. They either go unnoticed all game as your opponent wrestles with the rest of your army or they absorb an incredible amount of firepower and shrig most of it off.

Soulgrinder: A solid choice, good firepower, and absorbed a lot of fire (I was lucky at times when the marine player rolled a 1 that increased to 3 due to ap1 on the damage chart twice).

Heldrake: I can’t actually say that it did a great deal. I think that you always need at least 2 in your army. Too many times I have left sitting there as one does not turn up until turn 4. It caused both of my marine players a lot of trouble. The guard shot it down with interceptor, and it turned up far too late against the grey knights and the necrons. Unlucky maybe, but one flyer is a gamble.


Overall with two wins, two lossed and a draw I came 15th out of 32. For my first proper tournament I was happy that I came in the top half. There were lots of good players and all seemed to have some experience (my 4 mates all played fairly decent players). I need to develop my list so it can cope with hammer and anvil style deployment. In the others my fast units can move up with fire support from the others and create a threat heavy environment. In hammer and anvil, especially a firepower heavy army I just got shot to pieces.

I have finally played a game with the new eldar codex! Its against my friends blood angels in a 1500 point game of big guns never tire.

http://skulkers-surprise.blogspot.co...od-angels.html

Hope you enjoy.

Played a game with this list tonight against Chaos. A friend and I are designing tournament lists for events in a couple of months. 1850 points. This was my first practice game with my new tau and eldar list:

Shadowsun + c+c drone 155
6 Fire warriors 54
6 Fire warriors 54
6 Fire warriors 54
12 Kroot + dog 77
3 Riptides with IA, fusion, skyfire and interceptor 630
Farseer on bike with spear and spirit stone 135
10 jetbikes with 3 cannons 200
3 jetbikes with 1 cannon 61
10 warp spiders 190
Wraithknight 240

Relic, hammer and anvil. Not dark. He got side pick and I went first. Farseer gets prescience, hallucination and terrify as his powers.

He had a nurgle lord with brand and fist, 3 units of plague marines with plasma, melta and fist, 2 of which had rhinos, 2 baledrakes, 3 vindicators, 5 nurgle spawn and some cultists with a wall and comm link.

Going first I grabbed the relic with my big bike squad, which the farseer and shadowsun joined. Only boosted away 5". I killed a vindicator and shot the gun off another. The lord's rhino got immobilised and a single wound got put on the spawn. Pie plates scattered all over the place! First blood was scored accidentally, by a scattering riptide shot that blows up a vindicator it wasn't aimed at...

In reply he shot a couple of guys here and there, and the spawn were able to charge my jetbikes, which I might have been able to avoid with better placement or a bigger boost. However the bikes were awesome, killing two spawn with overwatch (luckily got 3 wounds with cannons) and a third in combat before they got to attack (farseer did 2 wounds with his spear). Then I had to take 9 3+ saves and passed them all! So I was locked with two spawn, one of which had taken a wound.

Turn 2, the kroot show up deep in the enemy deployment zone and shoot a few cultists, who break. I nova charge two of my riptides to get double tap with melta and the third one hurts itself trying to do the same. They go to work on plague marines and a vindicator (pop) and kill most of the lord's unit, with help from the warp spiders. Blasts continue to scatter all over the place, though they sometimes hit things I hadn't meant to shoot in the first place. The farseer puts prescience on his own unit and casts terrify on the foot unit of plague marines, who fail their test and break. Hal! He got perils when he cast prescience but his ghost helm saved him. The wraithknight jumps in and takes 4 wounds off the spawn, and the last wound goes to the farseer's singing spear. I get to consolidate back a bit, still holding the relic.

Unfortunately I also go a bit mad and decide one of my riptides should go and charge his lord and his one plague marine friend. I forget that they have defensive grenades, and that his warlord has rolled up fear for his warlord trait. I fail my fear test, I take a wound from a plague knife, I miss with both my smash attacks and take another wound from a power fist, roll an 8 for my break test and get run down! Arg!

His 2nd turn comes along. The cultists rally but the plague marines don't(!) so they keep running, but are still quite far from the board edge. Both helldrakes appear and vector strike the kroot, killing 3 and not quite causing a test. Then they both die to interceptor fire from my riptides! One of these was a close range shot with 2 fusion blasters, which is a pretty likely kill. The other was a lucky long-ranged IA shot that got 2 hits and double 6 to penetrate - so rather more lucky! This makes turn 2 the turn of having more of your own stuff die than the enemy, with a riptide and 2 helldrakes dead in their owner's turn...

His Lord's burning brand takes out 3 jetbikes but not the guy with the relic and I don't break, and he's now looking very exposed with my 3 bit MCs looking down on him and his one plague marine friend. My army is largely intact apart from the suicide riptide and half the bikes, while his is in a real mess. One vindicator is running but not doing anything to my jetbikes with shadowsun in the unit. There are 7 plague marines and the lord near my army and some more that are about to rally but are now far away. No real prospect of him getting the relic from me now that the jetbikes can run it back up to 12" a turn. I have first blood, linebreaker from the kroot and slay the warlord is a matter of time, so he concedes and I don't blame him.

On the whole then I'm very happy with how the army did. The jetbike unit was probably the star of the show, and the farseer in particular for scaring off the plague marine unit and cutting down spawn in combat. The riptides were awesome and the wraithknight was very useful to have as a counter punch against the spawn. All in all, the army performed very well, albeit in a position of going first in a mission that favoured me from the outset.

My opponent probably has a bit more thinking to do, probably along the lines of some allies. He might be able to get a few necrons and use them with either his chaos army or the GK one he's got at home. We agreed that his list just wasn't quite threatening enough at the moment, as it didn't have much speed or range.

So all in all a useful game for us both. I feel like I've got a pretty strong list so not sure what I'd change. I'm not 100% convinced by the warp spiders but not sure what I'd take instead. Shining spears maybe? Something elite? Dunno. To be fair the warp spiders just didn't have time to make an impact because stuff was already dead, but it's not really fair to criticise them for that!

Thought I would post some pics of a recent highly cinematic apocalypse battle. 8,000 points a side

Imperium (White Hawks(White Scars successor), Cadian (Desert regiment), Black Templars Terminators, Steel Legion (Snow Campaign)(Baneblade)

VS

Xenos (Iyanden Eldar, Orks, Chaos Space Marines)(Stompa)

[url]http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4thHorseman1/media/IMG_0466.jpg.[/IMG]

'From my hightower....' A sniper surveys the oncoming hordes.

[url]http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4thHorseman1/media/IMG_0470.jpg.[/IMG]

'Pile In' Assault marines v Daemon Prince (Daemon prince won)

[url]http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4thHorseman1/media/IMG_0473.jpg.[/IMG]

The absolute carnage of an Apocalypse battle

[url]http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4thHorseman1/media/IMG_0478.jpg.[/IMG]

'Shut that door!!'

http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4t....jpg[/IMG]

The Stompa takes aim....

[url]http://s1101.photobucket.com/user/4thHorseman1/media/IMG_0485.jpg.[/IMG]

You are no match for the massed ranks of the imperial guard!

http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/...1/IMG_0490.jpg

Oh....

Attached Thumbnails

         

 

My FLGS had its regular mini tourney so I decided to bring you a report of my daemons romp outside the warp.

A running rule for the stores mini tourneys is a modified force organization chart is as follows
0-1 HQ
0-1 Elite
1-4 Troops
0-1 Fast
0-1 Heavy

And +1 to any force org slot of your choice (except for HQ). Also a constant was a 10 point mission for each round with 6 being from the primary, 1 for each of the normal bonus objectives (first blood etc.) and 1 for having more kill points then your opponent. I like the modified chart because it both prevents super spamming in small games like 18 wraiths but also keeps it from being boring with having to take two troops and an hq which can be a lot in small games.

So the list I brought is as follows (I used the +1 FOC on heavy)

Bloodthirster
+ Exalted Reward
+ Greater Reward
11 Pink Horrors
8 Seekers
+ Alluress
Soul Grinder of Nurgle
+ Phlegm
Soul Grinder of Tzeentch
+ Phlegm

Being 3-0 I get best overall for the tournament. Daemons had a very great outing. All the games were enjoyable though I feel the win against the tau was not as satisfying because he made a critical error in overestimating his suit’s ability to kill a flying thirster since it resulted in him losing the only means to both deal with the core of my army, the grinders, and the primary objective of the bastion.

MVP
Grinders: They do it all, Kill, and not be killed. Only one grinder took any damage throughout the entire tournament because he got stuck with 6++ for two turns. Av13 and 5++ (or shrouded) while still killing anything and everything with phlegm. Nurgle is always great but Tzeentch is good just for retaining its mobility (such as running and sweeping advances) and if used in conjunction with grimore it’s almost as good as a 2++, plus its 10 pts cheaper.
LVP
Seekers: I originally wrote my list at 750 but when I arrived I learned it was 850, so had 101 points left over. 8 Seekers w/ Alluress was a perfect fit but with such a flimsy small unit they couldn’t survive long enough to do anything. The only good thing they did was when the thirster went to charge the suits in the Tau game, a single surviving seekers charged into to force him to waste his supporting fire on it so he could save his good overwatch from the suits for the Thirsters. Seekers are still solid but needs a huge unit and grimore support to get to combat and it just wasn’t the best choice for any of the games.

Everything else did successfully well. Thirster got good kills in all games and the horrors didn’t get wiped out and held objectives and killed a few guys. Can’t ask for better than that.

Getting ready for the TSHFT invitational

http://youtu.be/tfAR1d35uDQ

Right I'm back from my first game with the new book. I played 1500 points against SW with allied IG. His list had a blob squad, vendetta, 3 grey hunter squads in pods, rune priest, company command squad, 2 long fangs squads, quad gun and wall.

My list was:

HQ
1 autarch, laser lance, jetbike, banshee mask.

1 warlock with spear and conceal.

ELITES
5 fire dragons, exarch with flamer.

TROOPS
10 dire avengers, exarch, power lance and shimmershield, wave serpent, holofield and bright lance.

6 rangers.

10 defenders with bright lance.

FAST ATTACK
8 warp spiders, exarch with fast shot.

6 swooping hawks, exarch, sun rifle.

6 shining spears, exarch with star lance and hit and run.

HEAVY SUPPORT
2 war walkers each with scatter laser and star cannon.

1 falcon, star cannon and holofield.

Mission was purge the alien with dawn of war deployment. Luckily there was plenty of terrain on the table.

He deployed most of his stuff in a line behind the aegis. I hid everything I could behind some ruins in the centre. The war walkers used scout to redeploy further ahead and the rangers infiltrated onto a wooded hill on the far left with good line of sight to most of the stuff in his army. He was going first and I didn't manage to steal initiative.

Turn 1 saw 2 pods arrive containing the rune priest and 2 squads of tooled up grey hunters with meltaguns. One squad dropped on my right flank and blew up the wave serpent, killing 4 avengers and a guardian. The other squad scattered in front of the ruin that most of my army was hiding in and took pot shots at my war walkers. They took off a hit point but that was it. The infantry blob and one squad of long fangs fired autocannons and missiles into my warp spiders but they only lost 2 to the shooting as they were in cover.

In my turn I sent the falcon containing the dragons and the warp spiders as far forward as I could. The shining spears and autarch went to support the dire avengers, and the war walkers turned to shoot back into the grey hunters behind them. In the shooting phase the dire avengers and shining spears thinned the grey hunters down. Elsewhere the guardians and war walkers killed the other drop pod squad! The new rending really helped here. In combat my spears charged the grey hunters and killed them all, with the autarch slaying the rune priest.

Turn 2 and the vendetta arrived and killed the war walkers. The other pod arrived and dropped near my warp spiders. He then shot them up with plasma guns, lasguns, bolters, autocannons... pretty much everything except the long fangs who shot the falcon and took off 2 hit points.

In my turn the hawks appeared and dropped grenades on the blob squad. The fire dragons headed for the long fangs, and the shining spears zipped over to take on the newly arrived grey hunters. Luckily the swooping hawks blinded the blob squad but to be honest there was only 5 men left after their grenade drop and lasblaster shooting. The guardians killed a drop pod and the rangers finished off the command squad.

The combined fire of the dragons and falcon killed a squad of long fangs, and the spears killed a grey hunter. In combat the spears fluffed and killed two hunters with the autarch killing another two. In return they lost 3 thanks to a power axe and wulfen. Still they lost and ran with my shining spears just missing catching them.

Turn 3 the vendetta killed the falcon, the running hunters shot up the autarch leaving him on 1 wound. The long fangs killed all fire dragons except exarch.

I then shot the rangers and hawks into the long fangs and killed all but one who fled off table. The guardians killed the other drop pod. The shining spears and autarch charged the last few grey hunters and killed them all.

Turn 4 the vendetta tried to kill the fire dragon exarch by hovering. Then my guardians and warlock chucked a spear and bright lance into it and brought it down! I then mopped up the last few guardsmen and drop pod.

First victory to the 6th edition Eldar codex!

Before i go back to eldar battle reports this is a final space wolf battle vs Tau in a 1000 point game of the relic with hammer and anvil deployment. This is my first time facing the new tau codex and its been a long time (3rd edition maybe) since i last played them so it was a learning experience for me.

http://skulkers-surprise.blogspot.co...-tau-1000.html

Hope you enjoy, comments always welcome.

I took the following list to an 1850 point 5-game tournament last weekend.

Commander Shadowsun 155
Command-link Drone

10 Fire Warriors 90

6 Fire Warriors 54

6 Fire Warriors 54

12 Kroot 77
1 Kroot Hound

12 Kroot 77
1 Kroot Hound

XV 104 Riptide 210
Twin-linked Fusion Blaster
Ion Accelerator
Early Warning Override
Velocity Tracker

XV 104 Riptide 210
Twin-linked Fusion Blaster
Ion Accelerator
Early Warning Override
Velocity Tracker

3 Crisis Suits 186
3x2 Plasma rifles (non-linked)
One has Vectored retro-thrusters
Crisis Shas'vre
Puretide Engram Neurochip

5 Pathfinders 55

5 Pathfinders 55

Hammerhead Gunship 131
2 Gun Drones as standard
Submunition Rounds
Blacksun Filter

Hammerhead Gunship 131
2 Gun Drones as standard
Submunition Rounds
Blacksun Filter

Hammerhead Gunship 131
2 Gun Drones as standard
Submunition Rounds
Blacksun Filter

Farseer 168
Singing Spear
Runes of Warding
Spirit Stones
Eldar Jetbike
Eldritch Storm
Mind War

3 Guardian Jetbikes 66

On the way there I already felt that at least one hammerhead should be a skyray, but I don't yet have one.

Game 1 against CSM. A fairly soft army really, with 3x10 CSMs, a lord and warpsmith, defiler, maulerfiend, dread and helldrake. Bikes and spawn as fast attack and a vindicator. There was a high value objective in the middle which I got on the last turn thanks to my bikes boosting there and a riptide drop-kicking the last CSM off it. The tournament used two missions at a time and this one was the scourging plus kill points. It's honestly quite a simple game where I'm in control most of the way through and finishes 19 points to me, 1 to my opponent.

Game 2 against other Tau, with a big-ish farsight bomb, skyray, 2x2 broadsides with rail rifles, a couple of units of pathfinders and not many fire warriors. Had a bad first couple of turns and couldn't quite pull it back, so suffered a narrow loss. His saves were bizarrely good though. I landed an overcharged riptide shot on a broadside team and a missile drone passed 5, 5+ cover saves in a row! Then 10 4+ saves on other drones resulted in 2 dead drones total. His shooting was average so net result was him in control of more objectives. It did definitely show the advantages of some units I don't have and things like the SMS on the skyray were excellent for killing things like little units of pathfinders. Skyray's seekers also did a lot of harm to shadowsun's unit thanks to markerlight hits from pathfinders.

Game 3 was against ravenwing. Lots of bikes but also a couple of whirlwinds, which are actually very good in this list - especially when they can't fail a cover save against a railgun hit! Anyway this game is pretty brutal, as he is able to keep his dakka standard hidden while sending out tons of bolter shots. Not a good time to be a kroot or pathfinder! Fortunately I was able to kill the majority of his army and ended up with an objective, his warlord slain and linebreaker for a solid but not exceptional win.

Game 4 this morning was against daemons. He had 2 LoCs and 3 daemon princes set up behind a defence line and 30 horrors. I had rail guns and a farseer, and went first. Sort of a mismatch really and an easy win against a good player. A LoC died to overwatch fire at one point because I was able to stick markerlights on it, then spam plasma from my crisis suits. Runes of warding had their moment, after barely meeting a psyker in any of the other games, and seriously locked down the big daemons. It also inflicted several wounds. I got to instant kill a daemon prince as it tried to go to ground behind a defence line, which I haven't been able to do since 4th edition. How I have missed doing that!

Final game was against chaos with necron allies. Game 4 had put me up to table 1 on joint 1st points. 3 drakes, 2 scythes, 1 barge, a juggerlord, 6 obliterators and very minimal troops - 20 cultists and 10 warriors split between the two scythes. The riptides were tested and did not fail. I went first and killed the barge and most of the obliterators, though one remained to the end and really helped him out. He deployed off his comm relay as I was set up in force against it, but 2 drakes and the scythes appeared anyway on turn 2. One of these drakes got popped by an IA interceptor shot though - hurrah! Still they killed a bunch of guys with vector strikes and FWs ran off the board from burning. I made a Fairley big mistake and lost a riptide by putting it too near his khorne lord but the other one killed all 3 helldrakes and the suits killed a scythe. All my troops died though! It finished an 11:9 win to me, thanks to me killing 1565 points worth of his 1850 point army, but him having 3 warriors on an objective.

Final standings were me and another guy on 72 points, with 2 other guys on 73! Very close indeed. At least 2 of those armies were tau and there were 3 of us consistently up high. Based on this I'd say tau are, as lots of people are saying anyway, a top tier army. The three of us had quite different lists as well, with a straight gunline with mass fire warriors who finished on 73, me on 72 and the farsight bomb that beat me up there somewhere. Lots to think about from this so I'll definitely be able to improve on my list. The main issue is (and always has been) troops. Fire warriors and kroot are fine for weight of fire but utterly useless for crossing the board and taking objectives. I'll be trying out various combinations of allies I think.

The railheads have really been working hard to write themselves out of the army list. They've done almost nothing! Any time somebody has a 5+ cover save they have made it. They have had 3 1s to penetrate armour 11 and I think one penetrating hit has gone through, resulting in a stunned maulerfiend (that rolled a 1 and stayed stunned, then got shot in the back by drones). They did kill that one daemon prince and made the others wet themselves with fear, but if I'd just spent their points on fire warriors it would have had the same effect and given me far more troops.

Actually the detached drones have done about as much good as the hammerheads they ride with. Also submunition shots I really cannot complain about as they do major harm and can really work well against things like other Tau. I think maybe ion cannon hammerheads are worth a look... but not that closely. There's just other stuff we can take to do that job.

I'm quite tempted to go with 0 markerlights in future, or to only use them in quite limited combinations. I was very impressed by the farsight bomb, which doesn't require markerlight support thanks to the support suit, letting them reroll everything and ignore cover anyway. The rest of the time I think you may as well just take more guys with guns and do damage instead of worrying about cover saves. Not that it isn't useful but it's far from essential.

Riptides are doing pretty well. Pretty much as you'd expect really. I like having them around and they've done a fair bit of damage, particularly knocking the baleflamer off a helldrake as it arrived from reserve! The ordnance option is good to have as well. I think I under-valued that.

The farseer isn't doing much most of the time but having the jetbikes is excellent as I'd have no other way to get objectives outside my own deployment zone. They don't kill anything though, and my kroot units are barely more expensive, so I'm not at all sure they will be justified when the new book comes out and runes of warding are consigned to history. So far I've only met a dark eldar librarian, who amusingly got killed by overwatch fire from a riptide as he tried to charge a hammerhead on his own. He'd taken a perils wound earlier thanks to the farseer though, and stopped trying to cast stuff after that. But then in the one game against Tzeench daemons the farseer caused at least 5 wounds through perils (and would have done more if one of the LoCs didn't have 4+ FNP) while stopping iron arm and other stuff from happening. The pink horrors then totally ignored the runes and successfully cast all their powers!

My current thinking is that Tau are a tier 1 army but not quite on their own. They need to draft in some proper troops from somewhere else to take objectives for them. I don't know who these troops should be just yet. Eldar might well be the best option thanks to being battle brothers, and the option for 4 MCs is attractive. The jetbikes do a job.

It was one heck of a battle !

http://greenblowfly.blogspot.com/201...50-points.html