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The Wave Serpent had been stripped down to just the internal workings - the rest of it, the valuable wraithbone had been stacked in place awaiting the ritual which would transport them to the Brain's domain. In addition, a small stack of spirit stones had been collected and sequestered, hidden by the Brain himself. He had to get them into his realm - into his private matrix in order to protect them from She-Who-Thirsts. He knew most of his once-kin abhored him for what he did, but the Great Conspirator had allowed him to see into the future far enough to know that his was the only way to ensure that his people were not lost.

He had sacrificed himself for that very reason. His people should have thanked him - instead they exiled and hunted him. Anger flashed and the air shimmered around him in response to his emotion. It took a couple of seconds for him to get it under control. He knew the cost when he had made the bargain. The protected often come to hate their benefactors. It was just the way of things.

He was pulled from his reverie by the screeching of grav engines. He looked to the sky and saw a formation of skimmers approaching his position. The eldar had come to collect their dead.

Shep and I got in another game last weekend. It was basically a rematch of the previous week with a couple of slight army adjustments. For myself, I missed some of the smashmouth-ness that I got used to with my Khorne army so I wanted to fit back in the bloodcrushers. I also wanted to see how a single large unit of flamers would perform as opposed to 3 man suicide squads. This is what my final list looked like:

Bulemius (Great Unclean One - Breath, Flies) *p

11 Plaguebearers (Icon) *p
11 Plaguebearers (Icon)
6 Horrors (Bolt, Changeling)

8 Flamers (Bolt)
5 Bloodcrushers (Rending) *p

5 Screamers

The Brain (Tzeentch Prince - Bolt, Gaze) *p
The Eye (Tzeentch Prince - Bolt, Gaze) *p
Skwawk (Tzeentch Prince - Bolt, Gaze)

Shep also made a couple of tweaks (this is from memory and I didn't see a whole lot of his models other than the skimmers):

2 Autarchs with Chainswords, fusion guns and mandiblasters (joined with the Fire Dragons)
2x5 Fire Dragons with fire breathing exarch in Wave Serpents
2x10 Dire Avengers with John Woo exarch and blade storm in Wave Serpents
1x5 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent
3x Fire Prisms

We rolled up a Pitched Capture and Control. I won the roll and had Ryan choose sides and go first. He set his objective near the corner of a building about mid way from center of table over to the east side so that he could easily capture it without having to risk a dangerous terrain check. I on the other hand placed mine in the middle of a building in the center of my table in order to at least force a dangerous terrain check if he tried to tank shock me off it in the end game. With that I tried and failed to sieze the initiative.

Setup and early game

Shep spread out again pushing me back. He took the side that had 2 buildings in his deployment zone. I actually got my preferred wave (marked above with *p) - the Eye safely appeared in a building on the western flank of the eldar armada. As you can probably tell, I was going for survivability. I wanted the bloodcrushers south of him and about 10" from the edge of his battle line but they scattered away a few inches. I put the plaguebearers near my objective - about 6" from the building. They scattered 8" directly towards (and over!) the objective. Fortunately I only lost one of them. The Brain scattered back also, but still in range of his shooting and fatty once again appeared near the middle of my deployment zone. I tried to cheat during my shooting phase by rolling all 3 dice as if it were normal movement. Shep busted me on this, but all 3 dice had come up the same roll - a 5. Unfortunately, that would be the total of his moving for the next 2 turns as I misjudged range on a puke attack and failed to roll above a 2 on 3 dice for both turns. The Eye misses his shooting and the Brain hits but fails to get through the armored tank's shielding.

Shep shifted his vehicles around, still pretty secure since all of my stuff was so far back. He put his shooting into the Eye and returned the strange daemon prince to the warp but it took virtually all of his shooting to do so. Turn 2: the only reinforcements to show up are the other plaguebearers. They have a drift towards his vehicles but manage to arrive safely in a crater. One of them attempted to materialize in solid rock and was banished immediately. The others spread out a pretty wide distance providing a wall of bodies to shield the advancing bloodcrushers (of course, I wasn't thinking that he didn't have any AP3 anyway). The Brain shot at a skimmer and again failed to penetrate its armor. The plaguebearers claiming my objective shifted a bit to take advantage of true line of site and ensured that any shooting that was targeting them would have to come from an extreme angle buying them at least 2-3 turns.

A unit of 10 Dire Avengers hop out of their wave serpent and kick off Shep's shooting phase by killing 4 plaguebearers in a furious bladestorm. The rest of his shooting kills another 4 of them (it would have been more but I had one handful of really good feel no pain rolls.)

Mid and end game
Summoned by the prospect of eldar souls more daemons arrive. The horrors arrive off of the advance icon in position to shield the bloodcrushers (again, I guess I am conditioned to think that all eldar vehicles come with star cannons from my Black Templars days...) and shoot at the dire avengers, killing three and forcing the unit off the table (he rolled an 11 for leadership.) The screamers and flamers also arrive, both appearing near the icon of the plaguebearers in the building. The flamers are pretty far out of range for their own shooting so they run to spread out a bit for protection from the fire prisms's templates and to get in better position for next turn. The Brain continues his implacable advance, choosing to fire upon one of the wave serpents carrying the fire dragons and autarch. He destroys the vehicle but its wreck remains and the fire dragons are not pinned. They move over and take up a position to fire upon the bloodcrushers and kill one. He gets a hit with his fire prism on the screamers killing two out of three saves I was forced to make. The next vehicle killed them all as I failed all three saves. Then he dropped a template on the horrors and killed them all as I failed 6 out of 6 saves. Ah well, at least they had taken out a Dive Avengers unit. The remaining shooting wipes out the forward plaguebearers.

The flamers decide to show the fire dragons what true heat feels like. Their jump infantry movement catches Shep off guard and between them all get 31 hits and 16 or 17 wounds (all but three disallowed both cover and armor saves.) All that remained was an autarch with a single wound. The flamers charged in and finished him off but lost two of their own number.

The bloodcrushers finally got into charge range and took the extra move, not expecting to do much. They were not surprised. They did, however, get within 3" of the objective. When the last daemon prince finally arrived he moved toward that objective as well, laying down a punishing amount of anti tank fire (destroying the other large squad of dire avengers transport as well as immobilizing another one before finally ending the game within range of the final objective!) The flamers moved back to provide support for the plaguebearers in the building and Shep spent the couple of turns necessary to get some shooting on the plaguebearers. The ones in terrain were a little more difficult to deal with at range so Shep just tank shocked them off of the objective. I charged back in and while I was unable to destroy the two vehicles I was able to get within 3". The game ended with the large unit of dire avengers on his own objective but unable to claim it - same as my plaguebearers on my own. It was a draw on mission objectives but, thanks to Skwawk, a victory on VPs (as is the house rule for our group.)

After action review
Whew. Another hard fought game against my nemesis. There are rumors of a jetbike seer council in my near future so I think my streak may be coming to a close. I would have liked to have been able to make more than one out of eleven 4+ invulnerable saves on my horrors and screamers, but in a game of dice it averages out. I made a few clutch rolls when it mattered - in particular Skwawk's reign of terror. Guess he likes that name better than Bird Brain.

As far as the changes I made - I really felt the sacrifice of speed for the bloodcrushers over the fiends. That said, the crushers are able to absorb much more punishment. I think that in a second wave and off of a closer icon they will be really good. I wasn't sure if I would notice losing two plaguebearers from the units and the answer is a resounding YES! In order to get that unit size back up I think I will be dropping a couple of the screamers (I will try a unit of three - maybe they will be less scary and not draw as much fire) and one of the flamers - 7 will probably be as good as 8. The large unit of flamers has yet to prove to be more than a "gotcha" kind of unit but I will keep testing it.

I am considering swapping out one or two of the princes for soul grinders just to help deal with hordes and since, with the inclusion of the bloodcrushers, I can no longer fit the entire army in a single Sabol Platoon, I may as well take advantage of the additional space offered. I will probably start with just this weekend and see how that works out. The Eye has disappointed me for the last time... at least for a while.

Eternal Praise
Skwawk. He may have shown up late to the party, but he brought the goods when he came.

The Brain let out a scream of anger that was at odds with his usually analytical demeanor. The attack had caught him completely unaware. He had never thought that his previous kinsmen would be so brash as to return to a battlefield that they had just conceded.

He still had the store of wraithbone harvested from the downed fliers - and now a bit more to add to the stack - but a unit of blue armored Dire Avengers had recovered the spirit stones. In his fury he considered pursuing them immediately and using their own tactic against them. He checked his anger. He had won too much to sacrifice it in a petulant rage.

He began to examine the strands of fate searching for the one that would bring the doom of his hated kin.

great batrep, as always. The triple sniper princes must have been quite a pain in the neck!

Do you feel the big squad of flamers performed as well as you had expected? Did the bolt do you much good? Looks like your poor screamers got mashed again :( Oh, and the GUO. gutsy choice against a fast mech list, mine usually wastes the game chasing them like a dog chases cars in the street after his first attempt at a breath

I'm curious about how you guys handle tank shocks. If I'm not mistaken, at the start of the movement phase, you "aim" your tank (line it up with whatever) then declare how many inches you're shocking. The only time Fearless models ever get moved is if the tank finishes it's move directly on top of any of them, in which case you just move them the shortest distance out of the way while maintaining coherency and a 1" gap from the vehicle. My opponent are rarely able to shock my models entirely off the objectives, particularly when I have 10+ models spread out around it. Even if you aim perfectly, and guess the exact required number of inches to sit on top of the objective, the tank's usually not wide enough unless it's a land raider. and I imagine a wave serpent length-wise would also suffice. Granted, you just charge that 1" the following turn and attack their back armor (a handful of S4 shots after them moving 6"+, I know, but whatever), controlling again assuming it's a transport you're attacking. This, boys and girls, is why you always elect to go second as Daemons (they get a free move before you drop, you get a free entire turn at the end of the game).


Again, great batrep. I'm really excited to hear how the Biker Council match turns out. It's a much more epic Eldar force, but at least this time their biggest danger is on your turf, the assault. They can only singing spear so many of your guys, and seer council vs. a pile of bloodcrushers would be a hell of a throw-down

Thanks. We actually do the tank shock exactly as mentioned - Shep is just an old school IG player so his range guessing is seldom more than an inch or two off. Going second does allow me to charge in and then if the game doesn't end he is either stuck there letting me hit or moving off and kind of swapping out with a second one (if possible).

We all typically bring all comers lists cause we usually don't know what the other person is going to bring and we just prefer those kinds of lists (tourney style, more or less) unless it is a specific campaign thing.

Oh, and yes, objectives are a major reason that going second is the new going first. ;-)

I am also looking forward to the match up but I am afraid that his witchblades trump my high toughness so that could end up being a problem, at least I will still get feel no pain. It should be a fun matchup - I will probably play on sunday with 1 soulgrinder. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

cool cool. Kudos for bring take-all lists, I can never bring myself to tailor my list super-hard against my foes' if I know what he's bringing. Unless we agree before hand to make it an all-out killfest and angle our lists hard against eachother's, I find it alot more enjoyable to play a list I could feasibly field against any opposing lists.

Yeah, witchblades are gross vs. high toughness, and the S9 shots on the soul grinder may be troublesome, though AV13's a tough nut to crack. Thankfully his S8 AP3 pie plates will eat them up, at least as well as you can eat rerolled invuln saves WS4 I4 isn't too terribly hard to take advantage of either.

Anyway, good luck to you both!

Great batrep, thanks for posting. Sounds like the Gods frowned on your dice. I've been running a somewhat similar kind of list, but without a GUO. He appears to be an intriguing option, particularly with the three demon princes providing such versatile and effective antitank firepower.

GUO has one HUGE advantage. He is dirt cheap. That cheapness comes with extra survivability. In 2/3 of the missions, his slowness isn't a factor. They don't want to come to you? Fine, head over to an enemy held objective and hang out.

The same goes for the bloodcrushers. Somnicide here complains about them every time he uses them against me. He realizes I know EXACTLY how dangerous they are, I make sure they go away. That gives the rest of his army a free pass, but it 'looks' like they aren't survivable. As for their speed. Again, if they don't want to let you charge them, just go find an objective and light up a campfire. People forget that with +mobility comes -firepower. That perfect world where you are fast enough to avoid being charged while hitty enough to take the tougher demon units off the table is a fallacy. As is apparent with the two losses I've take against him while playing a "worst nightmare" list.