Hey folks!
You can read my other battle reports for this event here:
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five
Coming out of Round Two, I've got a 20 point massacre under my belt, a far cry better than the 13 points I secured in round one. On the third table I find Keith Silva! He's running the Foot Eldar that I was afraid Blackmoor would have last round, and I got a fair bit of ribbing as I went up to the table that I was about to get served - the amount of STR6 firepower in a foot-slogging list is astounding. I still have trouble comprehending 3 war-walkers with two scatter lasers each putting out 24 STR6 shots per turn.
Purple People Eaters:
HQ: Lelith Hespirax + Wych Retinue + Raider
Troop1 - Troop6: Units of 5 Wyches, Succubus+Agonizer, Raider. Couple squads had blasters, couple raiders had horrorfexes. All wyches in the army had haywire grenades.
Elite 1 - Elite 3: Units of 5 Warriors, each with a Dark Lance, each with a raider. Two squads with a sybarite, one with a Nightmare Doll, one with a Crucible of Malediction.
Heavy 1 - Heavy 3: Three Ravagers, all with Disintegrators.
I brought a little bag of washers, and each washer was labeled twice on both sides in magic marker 1-6 so that I could denote my wych powers - I haven't thought of a better system yet. As you look through this and other of my battle reports from this tournament, that's what those washers are.
Keith Silva's Ulthwe Eldar
HQ: Eldrad (Dom, Eldritch Storm, Fortune, Guide, Mind War
HQ: Avatar
Troop1: 10x Dire Avengers + Exarch with Defend and a Shimmershield
Troop2: 11x Guardians, Warlock with Embolden, Missile Launcher Weapon Platform
Troop3: 11x Guardians, Warlock with Embolden, Missile Launcher Weapon Platform
Troop4: 6x Pathfinders
Troop5: 3x Guardian Jetbikes
Troop6: 3x Guardian Jetbikes
Elite1: 11x Howling Banshees, Exarch (Acrobatic) + Wave Serpent with
TL Missile Launchers
Elite2: 10x Striking Scorpions, Exarch
Fast1: 1x Vyper
Heavy1: 3x Warwalkers; one with 2x Scatter lasres, 2x with Scatter Laser + Bright Lance
Heavy2: Wraithlord
Mission 3 was modified capture and control using modified pitched battle. Each players has two objectives, and your goal is to destroy the enemy objectives and not lose yours. You can find the full mission description on page 9 of the
Mission Packet
Primary (6 points): For each enemy objective marker that you have destroyed.
Secondary (3 points): Foe each objective that remains at the end of the game.
Bonus (2 points): One of your
HQs destroys an enemy objective.
Here's a picture of some fantastically painted Eldar. Footdar are something I'm rightfully wary of, and he's got only a few vehicles in there; a single skimmer for his banshees, a squadron of war-walkers and a vyper.
We rolled for deployment and I won! I elected to deploy and go first. We took turns placing objectives. I placed my first at the top of the building in my deployment zone, and Keith did the same, placing his first at the top of the building in his deployment zone. I placed my second objective 12" away - its the red casino dice. I had left my objective markers in my battlefoam case, and I wasn't about to try digging through there with time running to get them, so I used these instead.
You can see Keith's objectives at the top of the building and in front of his guardian squad.
Here's a side view of our deployment. Keith fails to seize the initiative and we get ready for round 1. I put raiders up on the line - the ones with red ponytails are warrior raiders and are empty. Hopefully if the initiative is stolen from me, I can use them to screen my wych raiders (a common tactic for me). I rolled a single wych squad with 12" assault, and chose to give Lelith 12" assault as well - you can see them up on the front lines.
Dark Eldar Turn1:
My raiders zipped 12" forward; the three in the middle (Lelith, the 12" squad and the wyches next to it) deploy out of their raiders. Keith deployed far enough up front that I can get in a turn1 assault and take something down before I get nuked.
I sent a couple raiders up the right side to shoot at his Vyper, and moved the rest to focus on his war walkers and wave serpent.
I dropped a horrorfex shot on his dire avengers behind the guardians and he fails leadership and gets pinned. A couple pictures in here are blurry, for which I apologize. I'd broken out the Captain Morgan, and as the first turn started, Keith saw his deployment mistake and started shaking his head because he knew it was going to hurt - I shared the booze freely.
On the far right side, two dark lances yield me an immobilized result on his vyper. Pretty much every other dark lance on the field pours into his wave serpent, and I succeed in immobilizing it. 10 dark lances into a wave serpent to get an immobilized result only. *shakes his head sadly* Par for the course so far. My ravagers didn't do anything noteworthy, nor did my crucible of malediction kill anything. One day, somewhere in the future, that Crucible is going to kill something in a tournament game. And it won't be a member of a psychic battle squad. Last night in a friendly game, a tricked out Hive Tyrant disappeared to the crucible, but that was a friendly game. ONE DAY!
For assaults, I deliberated - I was hoping to tie up his guardians for a full game turn to keep my wyches alive, so I took a risk and attempted to fleet/assault Lelith into Eldrad's squad. I was *really* hoping to take down Eldrad early here and grant myself a serious edge. Lelith makes it into the guardians that Eldrad is linked with, and my other two wych squads scream into his guardians out front while the dire avengers behind them are pinned.
The wyches eat into the guardians and annihilate them (chasing down what I failed to kill - they ended up being out of range of the Avatar to be fearless after combat resolution I think), but Lelith and her retinue fail to make a significant impact against Eldrad and his friends. Lelith went after an unfortuned Eldrad and failed to wound him, while the other wyches killed a guardian or two. I think we ended up tying combat.
I consolidate my remaining wyches as favorably as I can to try getting cover against subsequent shooting, although it will turn out that Keith has other ideas.
Holy CRAP! I took these pictures in order, and this is the next picture in line, which means that this bottle got emptied by the end of the first half of turn1.
At the end of my first turn, I'm in sole control of his forward objective, which is destroyed, and I've gained 6 points.
Eldar Turn1:
Keith has taken a couple of painful blows: His banshees are in an immobilized transport, he's lost an objective, had a guardian squad wiped out and a dire avenger squad pinned while Eldrad is locked in combat....but he rallies the troops to strike back furiously. He scoffs at the cover I've put my wyches behind and moves his wraith lord up to get into close combat with them while his Avatar casts his baleful eye onto Lelith and her wyches. Eldrad fortunes his own squad and dooms Lelith's squad - I'm not sure what the third cast did.
Here's a close up of his Avatar - my blurry picture can't begin to do it justice, but the paint was simply, absolutely amazing and I suggested that he start commission painting; there's some absolute skill here.
His banshees leave their immobilized serpent and head towards Lelith's combat with Eldrad. Keith enters his shooting phase and unleashes brutal, blinding fury against my Dark Eldar. Pathfinder sniper rifles, scatter lasers, missile launchers, bright lances....and his dice must have been trying to outdo mine because he whiffed the entire shooting phase. He stunned a raider, weapon destroyed a second and...that was it. He had an unbelievable amount of misses. Every game had a "worst event" or something similar where players reported the worst thing that happened during their game, and we told the judges about this shooting phase, which won him a blister and the prize for having the worst thing happen to him in a game.
The Avatar rumbles into Lelith's combat, pitting her and her wyches against both Eldrad, the Avatar, and the guardians while the Wraithlord goes to play with the other wych squad.
Here's the overhead shot as we moved into the bottom of turn1 assault phase:
Amazingly, my wyches stand before the brunt of the wraith lord, passing two invulnerable saves and dishing out two hits in return from an agonizer, which auto-wounds on a 4+. The wraith lord takes two and only has one left! I win by two, and the wraith lord survives for another round. Lelith doesn't fare so well. She directs her attacks against the assaulting Avatar who shrugs them off scornfully, although the wyches beat up on the rest of Eldrad's friends, wiping them out. We tie combat after I lose a few wyches; Lelith daringly took two hits from the Avatar and passed both 2+ invulnerable saves - the first game I've ever played where she didn't fail her shadowfield save in the first round of combat. Seriously.
Dark Eldar Turn2:
Things are looking grim for the Eldar - I'm in his deployment zone and suffered relatively unscathed through his shooting phase, even if mine was equally uninspiring. Two more wych raiders jet up into the fray and disgorge wych squads to try taking down the Avatar.
I open fire and fare a bit better this round. The immobilized wave serpent gets wrecked, the immobilized vyper gets exploded, and two of the war walkers are wrecked/exploded. Ravager fire from all three ravagers drop into his jetbikes hoping to kill some / scatter onto his scorpions. I kill two bikes from one squad and...that's it. A lot of scattering happened in the wrong direction. I think the exploding wave serpent killed a couple of banshees - I might have dropped a ravager back there too.
Here's a picture of Keith Silva holding the amazing Avatar that my pictures can't do justice for. Keith, if you read dakka....get a studio!
My wyches all assaulted into Eldrad / Avatar. 3 man wych squad and three 5 man wych squadrons. Epic fail occurs as the Avatar makes all his invulnerable saves. Eldrad finally takes a wound from a wych. He swings back and I lose a few wyches...lose combat, and my wyches FLEE! That's right - Lelith and a lone wych stay in combat, while my other wych squads flee aross the table.
Eldar Turn2:
Keith moves his striking scorpions closer to my raider fleet while his jetbikes make their move to take down a couple raiders (see picture above). His pathfinders fire and whiff against a raider again, while his banshees close in to support eldrad. His remaining war walker opens up and....whiffs again!
His remaining banshees join combat with Eldrad and the Avatar, multi-assaulting into the closest wych squad. The most amazing combat happens.
1. His Avatar takes two wounds from Lelith!
2. His Avatar whiffs his close combat attacks, causing one wound which Lelith saves.
3. The banshees.....mostly whiff. I think I lost a single wych.
4. The wyches destroyed the banshees in return (can't remember how many were alive to assault in).
At the end of combat he's lost combat; the remaining banshees die except for one. The Avatar fails his fearless saves and commits ritual suicide. Eldrad attempts to do the same and wounds himself, leaving Lelith and her wych still in combat with Eldrad, and my other wych squad (two left) against a single Banshee.
Here's a shot from the other side:
Dark Eldar Turn3:
See picture above: My remaining wych raider moves up to the building and disembarks to go in and play with the pathfinders. My ravagers open up on his striking scorpions and seriously reduce them, while my dark lances start popping bikes. My wyches in the building fleet during the shooting phase and roll well enough to get up to the second level, where they will assault into the pathfinders, probably kill them and end up in control of the objective up top.
At this point, Keith concedes the game, and I snag my second 20 point massacre in a row.
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I won't lie - while my shooting is something of a joke in
40k circles, Keith said that this was the worst game of
40k he'd ever played for dice rolling. My dice failing is usual for me; his abandoned him as epically (or worse) as mine. That, combined with the first turn went a long way towards deciding the outcome of the game. I would be terrified of this list if I didn't go first.
The first day ended, and although I wouldn't find out until the following morning, I'm now leading the pack in Battle Points!
