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Part 4 in out 5 part series!

Game # 4 Saim Hann vs. Saim Hann action!

My list!

HQ
Eldrad

Avatar

Elite
5 Fire Dragons
Exarch w/Dragon’s breath flamer

6 Harlequins w/5 Kisses, 2 Fusion Pistols
Shadow Seer w/Kiss
Troupe Master w/Power Weapon

Troops
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Missile Launcher

3 Eldar Jetbikes w/Shuriken Cannon
Warlock w/Singing Spear, Destructor

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

Falcon w/Missile Launcher, Shuriken Cannon, Holo-Field, Spirit Stone, Star Engines, Vectored Engines

My Opponents List:
HQ
Farseer w/Jetbike, Singing Spear, Rune of Witness, Runes of Warding, Spirit Stones, Fortune, Doom, Mind War

Prince Yriel

Elite
5 Fire Dragons
Exarch w/Dragon’s w/Breath Flamer, Crack Shot

Troops
6 Jetbikes w/2 Shuriken Cannons
Warlock, Singing Spear, Conceal

6 Jetbikes w/2 Shuriken Cannons

10 Storm Guardians w/Flamer, Fusion Gun
Warlock w/Singing Spear, Destructor
Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon, Scatter Lasers

9 Dire Avengers
Exarch w/Shimmer Shield, Blade Storm
Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon, Scatter Lasers

Heavy Support
Falcon w/Holo-fields, Spirit Stones, Eldar Missile Launcher

Fire Prism w/Spirit Stones


This is the famous “mystery mission” that we did not know about until just before the game.

Mission: Victory Points + 250 VPs for each Table Quarter

Deployment: Modified Pitched Battle (16” in)

Game Length:6 Turns

Special Rules:
Deep Strike
Outflank

There is one more thing…Take all terrain off of the table. That is right, bare table.

My Strategy for the game:
Win the dice roll to go first!!!


I win the die roll and choose to go first…yeah!


Set up:


Pretty simple: Trying to give myself some cover so I have the guardians behind each other, and the War Walkers behind the Falcon and Avatar (incase he seizes the initiative).

He sets up on the back left corner with his skimmers screening the Jetbikes. I use Eldrads re-deploy to move the Falcon and the War Walker squad to the left side.

Turn #1

Blackmoor turn #1
My War Walkers unload on his Jetbikes and they kill a few, and the Farseer is taken out because of double his toughness. A brightlance shoots off the Prism Cannon, and I stun a Wave Serpent.


Eldar turn #1
He rams my Falcon with his Fire Prism and my Falcon dodges, and he rams my Walkers with his serpent but does nothing. Other shooting Stuns some War Walkers.



Turn #2

Blackmoor turn #2

My Avatar shoots the Wave Serpent and does nothing, but my Jetbikes kill it. My Fire Dragons get out of their Falcon and down his Falcon. The Harlequins try to kill the Fire Prism with Fusion Pistols and do nothing. His Dire Avengers fail their pinning test and are stuck there for a turn.




Eldar turn #2
He moves up his Fire Dragons to shoots down my Falcon and also he is able to hit my Fire Dragons with their Dragon’s Breath Flamer and kills them. His Storm Troopers get out and kill my Harlequins. His Wave Serpent shoots up my Jetbikes.



Turn #3

Blackmoor turn #3
I move up my Guardians and take out his Dire Avengers. A War Walker squad shoots at the Storm Guardian squad but I roll bad and only do a few wounds. He takes one on Yriel for the 3+ save but he fails and is removed because of instant death. My Avatar takes down his Fire Prism.



Eldar turn #3
He assaults my Jetbikes with his Storm Guardians, and they don’t do much to each other.



Turn #4

Blackmoor turn #4
Now it is just a mop up operation. I am just finishing off what he has left.

Eldar turn #4
He has nothing left and the game is pretty much over.



I kind of felt sorry for James. This game came down to who went first. It was not fun for me, and it must not have been really fun for him. I think I might have had a chance if I went second, but with me going first it was game over.

That was a good battle report and a great first turn
It's a shame it was unfun for both players and it looked like it was extremely easy to win as well.

The tournament organizers claimed this scenario was designed to off-set the crappy football scenario, which was an automatic tie for everyone.. Where in reality, this was a poorly thought out way to screw over half the people there. As Blackmoor said, this scenario was largely dictated across the tournament by who got the first turn and had more bodies pulling triggers.

I didn't get to check out many other tables during this round, but I envisioned Gunline guard lists or shooty marines having their way with poor Tyranid and Ork players all over.

The wild west shoot out was an excellent first attempt, and I hope they do more.. But for a tournament where "fun was the primary goal", they sure went out of their way to design scenarios that sucked the fun out of playing for a lot of people.

This is starting to sound a lot like a trip up to the great white north to club some baby seals.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:This is starting to sound a lot like a trip up to the great white north to club some baby seals.

G

Considering the $75 entry fee and travel expenses several people had, this scenario was lazy and half-assed at best. I was only out $75 as I live in Phoenix, but if I drove or had to fly in from another state as well as shelling out for a hotel.. I'd have been livid. I feel for the guys who came a long way just to get gunned down on a table with zero terrain because they weren't playing a shooty army or didn't get first turn.

As I said, I really hope they do this event again and in all fairness it was the first time any of them had run something like this. I just hope a little more thought goes into balancing scenarios next time around. Or failing that, just play ones out of the book. If a tournament organizer wants to play silly games with zero terrain with their pals on a friday night, thats cool by me. But imposing a bunk scenario like this on a bunch of people who paid a lot of money to be there just seemed to be kind of a dick move.

I know they meant well however, hopefully next time they get it right.

Mundar wrote:The tournament organizers claimed this scenario was designed to off-set the crappy football scenario, which was an automatic tie for everyone.. Where in reality, this was a poorly thought out way to screw over half the people there. As Blackmoor said, this scenario was largely dictated across the tournament by who got the first turn and had more bodies pulling triggers.

I didn't get to check out many other tables during this round, but I envisioned Gunline guard lists or shooty marines having their way with poor Tyranid and Ork players all over.

The wild west shoot out was an excellent first attempt, and I hope they do more.. But for a tournament where "fun was the primary goal", they sure went out of their way to design scenarios that sucked the fun out of playing for a lot of people.

Could you not hold stuff in reserve during this scenario or something?

You could if I remember correctly. I was playing a pod army, so didn't have it as bad as some people did.

Dude, you are awesome. If I would see the list on paper I would say that it sucks but you proved that there are other lists to play than the mech-council build. Respect!

I dont feel sorry for that mech eldar player at all. I mean the mission absolutely sucks. But theres a simple solution to this problem. Reserve/alpha strike. He is faster then blackmoor, so why didnt he just leave everything in reserve when he found out he was second?

No reserves in this mission. He had to stay on the table.

You mean they wouldnt let you choose to reserve anything?

Ramming tank shocking with the falcon was silly.

G

Actually a skimmer can't dodge a ram by another skimmer (a guy at my FLGS does this regularly, and it's actually right there in the rule that skimmers can't dodge other skimmers) so you got off with a break there in turn one, Blackmoor.

But I agree that it was silly--especially if the falcon being rammed has a holofield because it's likely to take just a shaken result while putting a str 9 or 10 hit on the wave serpent (with no energy field protection). So maybe it would have just killed the serpent sooner.

Blackmoor wrote:There is one more thing…Take all terrain off of the table. That is right, bare table.

No. I'm sorry. This is not how 40K is played. That's a joke.

I know I harp on about terrain in this forum all the time, but this is just absurd. If I'd've paid to be in a tournament, and they told me to remove terrain from the table, I'd've walked. Out the door, no questions asked, perhaps with a big "feth you" to the organisers on the way out. It's one thing to have bare tables with nonsense, useless and irrelevant terrain. It's another to remove it entirely.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:There is one more thing…Take all terrain off of the table. That is right, bare table.

No. I'm sorry. This is not how 40K is played. That's a joke.

I know I harp on about terrain in this forum all the time, but this is just absurd. If I'd've paid to be in a tournament, and they told me to remove terrain from the table, I'd've walked. Out the door, no questions asked, perhaps with a big "feth you" to the organisers on the way out. It's one thing to have bare tables with nonsense, useless and irrelevant terrain. It's another to remove it entirely.

I agree. I would not have taken drastic measures, but I generally do agree with you that the no terrain mission was garbage. I dislike tournaments in general that try put in missions that screw over one kind of army or another. All vehicles must start in reserve. Night fight all mission. Stuff like this is bad, there should be something thats slightly more challenging for each kind of army, but nothing something designed to knock someone running say hand to hand chaos out of the running.

Apparently no army in the 40k universe ever fights on the plains of Nebraska. It's always next to a ruin or a city or near trees.

"Commander the enemy is alone in an open field. Should we engage them?"

"No. We can not attack them until they move near a covering piece of terrain."

DarthDiggler wrote:Apparently no army in the 40k universe ever fights on the plains of Nebraska. It's always next to a ruin or a city or near trees.

"Commander the enemy is alone in an open field. Should we engage them?"

"No. We can not attack them until they move near a covering piece of terrain."

And there has to be loads of skulls around.

DarthDiggler wrote:Apparently no army in the 40k universe ever fights on the plains of Nebraska. It's always next to a ruin or a city or near trees.

"Commander the enemy is alone in an open field. Should we engage them?"

"No. We can not attack them until they move near a covering piece of terrain."

Like HBMC said, 40k is simply not designed to be played on a barren table. No one gives a gak about realism, this isn't war, it's a game. And there's no point in playing a one-sided game that you've already lost.

Maybe you were just being sarcastic, in which case I apologize...

Anyway, needless to say that's bogus. I would have been pissed off too, and I play Tau. I wish more TO's had a clue.

Here is the thing. They have to come up with five missions. So probably they dont write missions all that often... So they took the easy way and came up with two lame missions. Hopefully next year they'll put more effort into it. It's not easy to write five good missions, but of course it can be done. Me personally I like to see the bonus points tie into the major objectives.

It's not like Allan wrote the missions and got to choose his opponents.

G