Had a great battle with CKKris at Card Kingdom Thursday. It was epic, fun and I had a really great time. Figured out as I was writing this up however that I cheated. I didn't ad in the points for my seer council and was probably 160 or so points over the 2000 that we set up for. Bad adding Llama!
So the last time I did a big battle report I told it in story form and I really like that, though some requested I put it in the more traditional pictures and tactics form. Well I'm going to do both. First here will be the set up and play, then a link here and at the end to switch to story version. Perhaps the fluffy version should be in another place, if so please let me know where. Doh! Didn't take that many pictures because I was just too darned excited.
The story version
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/391096.page#3213194 Eldar List:
HQ:
Caelis Sol (Eldrad Ulthran) W/Seer council (4 destructor, 1 Enhance)
Maugan Ra
Troops:
7 Pathfinders
8 guardian jetbikes
5 Dire Avengers, Exarch w/defend
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch w/bladestorm, defend, double shuircat
Elite:
6 Fire Dragons, Exarch w/flamer
Fast Attack:
6 Warp spiders, Exarch w/dual spinner, Surprise assault
6 Warp spiders, Exarch w/dual spinner, Surprise assault
10 Swooping hawks, Exarch w/sun rifle, sky jump
Heavy:
3 War walkers w/scatter lasers
5 Dark Reapers, Exarch w/tempest launcher, fast shot
Wraithlord w/scatter laser
As I was thinking over my list during the week I planned out that I was going to castle up somewhere, and throw tons of dakka at him and hopefully keep the tyranids from reaching me. To counter the arrival of genestealers and such I thought if I spread out my units so they can't come up out of the terrain due to the 1" rule I will be fine. I planned on keeping the jetbikes back a little bit, deep strike my spider squads and sky leap my swooping hawks first turn. The fire dragons would be on stand by placed intermittently between the dire avengers to take out the sudden arrival of a Trygon, the war walkers would be on horde duty, the dark reapers on tyranid warrior style units. The wraithlord would be shooting hordes and then hand to hand any large characters that make it to me.
Tyranid List:
HQ:
Flying hive tyrant with all kinds of goodies
Troops:
12 Genestealers
12 Genestealers
12 Genestealers
Elite:
Ymgarl Genestealers
2 Zoanthropes w/Mycetic spore
Doom of Malan'tai w/Mycetic spore
Heavy:
Carnafex w/death spitters, Mycetic spore
Trygon prime w/Containment spikes
Trygon prime w/containment spikes
Well CKKris may write a little bit of what he was thinking here later, but from what I discovered, this entire army starts off the board. Not one unit on there. That was quite intimidating, let me tell you. His execution was to throw everything right next to me through drop pods and flying and all kinds of crazy infestation stuff, and wow it happened!
Okay. Deployment. CKKris had the first turn, and well like I said the Tyranids didn't bother putting a thing on the board. I set up most of my guys as far forward as possible with the plan of running to the big ruin in the centre, castle up there, thinking it would give me the best fields of fire to take out the beasts as they came in. As I planned I kept the spiders and the jet bikes in reserve. Swooping hawks would take off first turn so they had a better chance coming in and so they could blow something up along the way. My war walkers scout moved forward into the ruins which allowed them to well and truly set up for the second turn.
Turn one:
Tyranids: All quite on the western front, on all fronts for that matter.
Eldar: Bum rush the home base! Check! All my squads moved and ran so they could reach the ruins, set up inside and get comfy. I mixed my units up amongst themselves in an attempt to create cover for each other in case of fire. The wraithlord was planning on hanging out on the right side of the table, the Dark Reapers and Maugan Ra would be just to the left side and the war walkers had enfilading fire on the whole shebang. The picture below is actually as the Tyranids are coming in turn two, but you can see kind of the muddled mess of the Eldar gun lines.
Turn Two:
Tyranids: Enter the evil bugs!
First onslaught was not as bad as it could have been I guess, but it was pretty terrible. On the right side, or to the east of my force a Trygon Prime erupted from the ground. On the left side of my force the hive tyrant landed with a carnifex and prepared to wreak havoc. Worst of all just to my side of the table, or the southern end came the doom of malan'tai. A group of genestealers also entered the left side of the table. The doom of Malan'tai was easily the cheapest and most effective unit in the Tyranid force. The leach essence immediatly took out two warlocks, two dire avengers, two fire dragons, and three dark reapers, not a shot fired. About 200 points dead before any guns were shot.
Doom of Malan'tai attempted to use a power, but Eldar runes gave him an 11. No perils, but no attack either. The Trygon opened up on the fire dragons, my attempt at creating cover did not take into account a towering snake object that could see down into my guys. So another dragon bit the dust. On the left side my dire avenger squad was taken down to only three guys. Fire dragons broke and ran, ending up just the other side of the doom so they would run on my turn as well. Everyone else however held fast.
Eldar:
Revenge is sweet! Eldrad cast Guide on my war walkers, and doom on the massive trygon. I planned on him casting mind war on the carnifex in the hope of taking it out with my superior leadership. All of my deep strikers hit the field, the spiders teleporting in just within range of the hive tyrant, the other near the carnifex. Swooping hawkds came down with a nice ranging fire for the southern mycetic spore. Maugan Ra seperated from the dark reapers and moved towards the carnifex. The fire dragons moved away from the doom a little bit, dire avengers shifted for their field of fire, and the wraithlord set up to charge the trygon after shooting it. Then the Doom struck again. Yes leach essence works on every turn. Only one unit failed it's leadership test, too bad for me, it was the wraithlord and he took I believe five wounds, crumpling to the ground, totally useless. Another 110 points.
While they were retreating the fire dragons were kind enough to let off a burny round of fire which turned the Doom of Malantai into a big puddle of goo. Swooping hawks dropped ammo on the genestealers who were coming in taking out one or two. Then they and the dire avengers opened up on mycetic spore the Doom had come in taking it out. Pathfinders opened up on the hive tyrant along with a squad of warp spiders. down goes the monster! Second spider squad and Maugan Ra shoot up the Carnifex a little bit. Scatter walkers plink away at the doomed Trygon, but don't do that well, even with guide. The seer council shoot him with destructors and shuriken pistols. Eldrad hits the Trygon with mind war as well so I can charge it in the assault phase. Good thing too because the Trygon still had two wounds at the end of all that. In we leap for close combat. Maugan Ra and his group of spiders charge the carnifex. Eldrad and his seers charge the Trygon.
Assault phase Maugan Ra carves the carnifex into many small twitching pieces before the spiders even get a good swing in. On the other fight the Trygon crushes two of my seer council, and is then in turn felled by Eldrad. (This is likely the turning point of my oopsie. Would I have charged with just Eldrad? Would those two hits that killed Seers instead have killed Eldrad? Would Eldrad still be locked in
CC with the Trygon the third turn because one of the final wounds was from the remaining warlock? We shall never know, at least until the rematch.)
For consolidation the spiders and Maugan Ra pulled back towards the south of the ruins and Eldrad and the remaining warlock returned into the ruins as well.
Turn 2 eval:
Well at the top of 2 when all those nasty creatures popped up and especially with the opening of the Doom of Malan'tai. I was sure this game was going to be over really quick. I thought the Eldar were going to be tabled by the end of turn three, maybe four. Even through all the slaughter though, the Eldar held firm and relying on the special characters and reinforcements managed to take out everything but the genestealers and a mycetic spore. Quite impressed with the synergy of the castle that I made up.
Turn 3:
Tyranids
More big beasties. The second Trygon, two more genestealer squads, and the two zoanthropes came in. Ymgarl still a no show at this point. That was good for the Tyranids actually.
So the second Trygon came in to the south near Maugan Ra. Zoanthropes landed near the North west of the table by a squad of warp spiders. Both of the genestealer squads came in from the east, or right end of the table. The turn two genestealers on the other side of the table managed to make it into assault range of the warp spiders who had taken on the carnifex. Trygon fired away at those same spiders hoping to wipe them out I believe. Only a couple fell due to their 3+ armor save. Zoanthropes tried to make a psychic attack only to have one of them pop and fall to the ground. All in all not much happened for the Tyranids despite an impressive arrival of units. One of the squads of genestealers managed to get within assault range of my swooping hawks and charged in.
In the assault phase the left/west side genestealers charged into the injured warp spiders and cut down all but the Exarch. He loved it rolling snake eyes on his leadership test as well as killing a stealer in return. The swooping hawk battle cost me about half of the squad, in return they managed to kill two of the assaulting stealers. They didn't mind the losses and stayed stuck in.
Eldar
Eldrad once more doomed the intimidating Trygon and guided the scatter walkers. He then also tried to doom another unit but failed, although he didn't take a perils. Swooping hawks sky jumped out of their, didn't want to stick around and get slaughtered they planned on coming back in the next turn. Eldrad managed to roll a 6 on the difficult terrain and jumped across the ruins into charge range of the massive Trygon. Jet bikes came in this turn, lined up on a squad of stealers as well as the dire avengers coming closer. The
DA couldn't fire since they had blade stormed the turn before, but I figured to charge in if I could. The fire dragons rallied and moved up onto a boulder so they could take aim at the newly emerged Trygon. The three that could shoot him did so, causing a pair of wounds. Northern squad of warp spiders lined up on the remaining mycetic spore, shredding it with monofilimant wire. Pathfinders turned the remaining mycetic spore into swiss cheese. The guardian jet bikes with help from the two remaining dark reapers took out all but one of the genestealers that had been assaulting my swooping hawks. Maugan Ra caused two more wounds on the Trygon in shooting before he charged in. The scatter walkers could just make out the third genestealer squad to the east and they chewed up all but three of them. My western Dire avengers charged in to help the warp spider exarch while Maugan Ra and Eldrad attacked the Trygon. Slash and squish Maugan Ra landed 4 wounds on the Trygon turning him into a puddle of gore. The warp spider exarch and
DA buddies tied the stealers in combat each side losing two.
Turn 3 eval:
Once again it is disconcerting to see what was a nearly clean table fill up with monsters, all of them within strike range. I didn't shoot at the second zoanthrope because I figured if he did attack there was a pretty good chance he would just perils himself to death. Maugan Ra once again just slaughtered things in close combat. Eldrad and his warlock buddy didn't even have a chance to do anything this turn. Jet bikes came on at the perfect time to take advantage of the stealers who were left in the open by departing swooping hawks.
Turn 4:
Tyranids:
The final squad of Ymgarl stealers came onto the table emerging from the ruins I'd been using as a castle. If they had come out in either of the previous turns they would have been instantly killed as there was no space for them to enter without being 1" from my guys. As it was they were very closely packed. Ymgarls multi assaulted my pathfinders and war walkers. The lone stealer to the east charged the three dire avengers there, and the other squad to the east of three guys moved up as well. The zoanthrope managed to get a psychic blast off but didn't do anything.
My Dire avenger exarch on east side slaughtered the genestealer with no loss, then consolidated towards the squad of three remaining. Ymgarls destroyed one war walker and killed all but two of my pathfinders, breaking them. The warp spider assault on the other side had a whole lot of nothing happen.
Eldar:
Well, here's to assaulting! The three dire avengers to the east lined up for a bladestorm on the three remaining genestealers. My Jet bikes, fire dragons, dark reapers, eldrad, warlock and a squad of warp spiders all charged into the ruins to kill Ymgarls. Maugan Ra charged into the other fight to help the warp spider and dire avenger exarch that were still mired in close combat.
To the east the dire avengers slaughtered the three stealers. Ymgarl assault managed to kill all but three of them I think. Then Maugan Ra heaved back and rolled five 1's. Yes, his fantastic close combat skills resulted entirely in misses.
Turn 4 eval:
At this point we actually called the game, there were no more tyranid reinforcements and we had played a 500 point warm up game before this one. (The wife who had been very patient was getting restless as well.) I forgot to bring my swooping hawks back in, though I think the only thing I would have had them do is hit the zoanthrope who was still hanging out to the north.
Over all evaluation:
Well, I was very pleased with my tactics. The idea of castling up in the center of the field worked out pretty well for me. If a couple more tyranids had come in on the first turn, or a couple more waited for the second turn I think this would have been a very different story. Biggest waste of points in the game was my wraithlord as he was destroyed by the doom of Malan'tai before he could even get a shot or a swing off. Best use of points I would say was Maugan Ra. Even though he whiffed on the last assault he did manage to put down a pair of
MCs. One thing I would have done turn 2 in retrospect is cast fortune twice in my turn. Might have saved a couple of fire dragons from containment spines. Or the western dire avenger squad from all of the death spitter shooting. The biggest hurdle was the doom of Malan'tai, although he was fragile, he managed to kill a lot of creatures! I think instead of surrounding me as CKkris did, I might have dropped all of those beasties on one side, possibly preventing one side of my forces from firing at them. If the doom had been paired up with the carnifex and hive tyrant to the south east I would have been very hard pressed to get all the same fire on them, and he could have wiped out the dragons and dark reapers instead of shooting up dire avengers. Who knows though, hind sight is always 20/20 right?
I think I'm going to do the fluffy report in another battle report and have the
OP with a link. It will be here below.
