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Last game of the tourney, and I get matched up with...eldar. He had Harlequins, too, which I've never seen run before, and never want to see run ever again. You'll see why.

Anyway, the Mission:

There were 2 objectives, placed in the center of the board, 14" apart. On turn 3 the player who went first rolls a D6, 1-3, the objective on his left becomes scoring, on a 4-6, the one on his right does. Also, the unit closest to the objective gets it, so it's very hard to contest. BTW, the gaunts were the objectives.

Massacre: Control the objective without any contesting units
Major Victory: Have 1 more scoring unit than your opponent on the objective while holding the objective.
Minor Victory: Hold the Objective my being the closest physically to it.

His Eldar:

Eldrad (he uses a shadowseer model, but it's awesome)
Jetlock Council
3x Warwalkers w/ dual scatterlasers
Rangers upgraded so they get a 2+ cover save (Pathfinders?)
Harlequins w/troupe master, they have their fusion pistols or whatever
Night Spinner
2 3-man guardian jetbiker squads
5x fire dragons w/ wave serpent
10 Dire avengers with Wave Serpent

Here's his Eldrad counts-as. he also had the actual model if anyone got mad over not having the model, but no one cared.


Anyway, he wins the roll-off and decides to go first.

He deploys his Serpents in one corner, his council and Harlequins with Eldrad attached in the middle, his night spinner to the other side, and his warwalkers on the far corner. His rangers also deploy in a building.

My Deployment:

I just set up shop on the building with my blob squad, my Ratlings fail to do anything useful as there was no cover to be found for infiltrating, and deploy between two buildings, waiting to die. Vendetta and Marbo stay in reserve.
My far side becomes a massive parking lot.

Eldar Turn 1:
Anyway, first turn he rolls up his warwalkers onto a building, giving them a nice 4+, since I could see less than half, and proptly shoots up a chimera, stunning it. They were guided .
He also moves up his jetlocks, turboboosting for a nice 3+ coversave, and they're ing fortuned!
His NightSpinner also tries to pin my blob squad by killing a few, but they pass their LD check.

His Harlequins also move up, and get ready to eat my Ratlings.

IG turn 1 (No Pics):

I move my tanks a little to get a good shot, and my chimeras move a bit to get ready to rush the objective.
Shooting: I expected to kill off his Harlequins easy with Barrage weaponry. I thought they were like the Tau Stealth Suits, where you can target them with Barrage. However, as my opponent explained to me, they can't be targeted by Barrage to negate their stealth rule (2D6 x2, I think). So they were impervious to long-range fire, much to my dismay. (He called GW and got an official confirmation, apparently). And they ignore all cover for the purposes of movement.

Instead, I blow up his Fire Serpent and blow off the Night Spinner's main gun. That's about it.

Eldar Turn 2:

He moves up his harlequins to assault my Ratlings and OMGWTFPWN them in about two seconds. They consolidate close to my blob squad.

His Brightlance also wrecks one of my tanks (He got an immobilized, but in a squad, Immobilized->Wrecked .

His Night Spinner, having nothing better to do, turborams my chimera with meltas to stun it I try to hit it back with the chimera, but it turns out I can't actually hurt it after ram calculation, then starengines away. He does this most of the game, since the night spinner had no more use.



Eldar Turn 3: He eats my blob squad, and wrecks a bunch of my vehicles with his jetlocks. His Harlequins consolidate to my Russ.


IG Turn 3: It's getting pretty bad. Marbo comes in, but fails to blow up the Wave Serpent against rear armor with his demo charge. My tanks fire randomly, but his fortune keeps everything alive. I end up moving all I can as far as I can to the objective.


Eldar Turn 4: A single squad of Guardian Jetbikes come on and fly to the objective. His Harlequins eat my other russ.

IG Turn 4: My vendetta finally comes in and blows apart a Warwalker. I'm waiting for a turn 5 rush to the objective. My Chimeras that are still alive run like crazy to the objective to try to block it off.

Eldar Turn 5: He kills my CCS Chimera and the squad inside with fusion pistols and Destructor from the Jetlocks. His other jetbikes, now from reserve, hog the objective.

This is my last picture, the games got really short on time.

IG Turn 5: My Vendetta boosts over to contest the objective, denying him a Massacre and giving him a Major Victory.

Eldar: Epic Win
IG: Epic Fail

Thoughts on my first Tournament: It was fun, and that's what I came for. I really didn't expect the Harlies to eat through my army...I need a couple flamers in the future. My HF on vehicles weren't around to save the day. I didn't expect to do well, I can only go up to 1750-1850 semi-competitively, at 2000, I just throw in everything I have. I much prefer 1500 games.

That is some beautiful freehand on the Eldar vehicles.

Eldar looked really good. Sorry about the loss.

Just so I'm reading this right: your opponent performed a ram with his Nightspinner, hits your Chimera, then successfully rolls for his Nightspinner dodge the ram attack? Did he explain this with a straight face?

Sarigar wrote:Eldar looked really good. Sorry about the loss.

Just so I'm reading this right: your opponent performed a ram with his Nightspinner, hits your Chimera, then successfully rolls for his Nightspinner dodge the ram attack? Did he explain this with a straight face?

Haha, that is epic! It was probably trickery for the laughing god. You never wondered how his skimmer could both put a ram hit on you AND at the same time dogde the collision?


When you see an opponent with such a beautiful army, you should be worried, it's probably his baby, he probably sleeps with it beside his pillow and carries a firedragon in his pocket at all times, so he probably knows his army very well, and is highly capable playing with it. The harlie + Eldrad combo is nasty, making him immune to long range fire.

Sarigar wrote:Eldar looked really good. Sorry about the loss.

Just so I'm reading this right: your opponent performed a ram with his Nightspinner, hits your Chimera, then successfully rolls for his Nightspinner dodge the ram attack? Did he explain this with a straight face?

Yeah they looked amazing. So he can't dodge it when he preforms it?

Nevermind, I remembered that I couldn't do anything to his AV 13 front armor from my ram calculation. Whoops.

So, this pretty well shows THE problem with 2/3rd mechanized 1/3rd armored guard lists. With nothing to screen your vehicles, he ate them in close combat.

More importantly, though, it looks like you just sort of sat there with your dudes once the chimeras died, and got eaten by even more close combat.

Perhaps if you would have transport rushed straight away towards the objectives instead of "move a bit to get ready" turn 1, the fight would have happened closer to the objectives and you might have been able to snag one, rather than just getting horribly bogged down in your deployment zone.

As I'm sure you realize, having extra mobility isn't all that helpful if you don't use it.

Nice report, though.

Ailaros wrote:So, this pretty well shows THE problem with 2/3rd mechanized 1/3rd armored guard lists. With nothing to screen your vehicles, he ate them in close combat.

More importantly, though, it looks like you just sort of sat there with your dudes once the chimeras died, and got eaten by even more close combat.

Perhaps if you would have transport rushed straight away towards the objectives instead of "move a bit to get ready" turn 1, the fight would have happened closer to the objectives and you might have been able to snag one, rather than just getting horribly bogged down in your deployment zone.

As I'm sure you realize, having extra mobility isn't all that helpful if you don't use it.

Nice report, though.

This is the problem with throwing together a list with everything I have. I really haven't played at 2000 ever before this tourney, and I can only make a semi-competitive army up to 1850.

I would have had more infantry, but my model pool kind of dried up. I plan to get waay more guardsmen in the future, as well as a commissar or two.

I see what you mean with the problem about a Hybrid list. It was the parking lot that killed me, with wrecked/stunned models in the way, I had a tough time getting out of the area.

The only reason I really entered the tourney is that it happened the day before I left for Portland, where I'm 40k-less for about a month. So 3 games, even though I lost 2 of them, was still worth it.

Gavo wrote:This is the problem with throwing together a list with everything I have.

The only reason I really entered the tourney is that it happened the day before I left for Portland, where I'm 40k-less for about a month. So 3 games, even though I lost 2 of them, was still worth it.

I feel your pain, brother.

It's good to know you still enjoyed the tournament. Better luck avoiding the parking lot in the future.

Ailaros wrote:

Gavo wrote:This is the problem with throwing together a list with everything I have.

The only reason I really entered the tourney is that it happened the day before I left for Portland, where I'm 40k-less for about a month. So 3 games, even though I lost 2 of them, was still worth it.

I feel your pain, brother.

It's good to know you still enjoyed the tournament. Better luck avoiding the parking lot in the future.

Yeah, seriously. IG Parking Lots + Immobilized on a couple =

You know what, screw it. To avoid this kind of in the future, I'm going to grab a couple of hellhounds. No more saves for non-meq!

Yeah, I think you got a little hosed on the ramming issue. it probably wouldn't have saved you, but I think in general, even with your list, you'd have done better knowing more rules.

I'm not sure you need hellhounds, exactly, but IG get plenty of flamers and heavy flamers in their units. I personally love the PCS w/ four flamers, and I put Hull heavy flamers on all my chimeras.

Polonius wrote:Yeah, I think you got a little hosed on the ramming issue. it probably wouldn't have saved you, but I think in general, even with your list, you'd have done better knowing more rules.

Actually, I reinstated it, it was that my AV 10 side armor on my chimera wouldn't have done anything to his AV13 front armor.

Maybe I'll grab a PBS+Chimera. Only problem is that it costs nearly $100 USD new.

Gavo wrote:
Yeah, seriously. IG Parking Lots + Immobilized on a couple =

You know what, screw it. To avoid this kind of in the future, I'm going to grab a couple of hellhounds. No more saves for non-meq!



Actually, I reinstated it, it was that my AV 10 side armor on my chimera wouldn't have done anything to his AV13 front armor.

Wouldn't have helped too much against the harlies, they have an invulnerable save, also, Eldar vehicles have max AV12.

Illumini wrote:

Gavo wrote:
Yeah, seriously. IG Parking Lots + Immobilized on a couple =

You know what, screw it. To avoid this kind of in the future, I'm going to grab a couple of hellhounds. No more saves for non-meq!



Actually, I reinstated it, it was that my AV 10 side armor on my chimera wouldn't have done anything to his AV13 front armor.

Wouldn't have helped too much against the harlies, they have an invulnerable save, also, Eldar vehicles have max AV12.

Really? i thought the front of the prism was 13...wouldn't have mattered anyway. And yeah, hellhound wouldn't do much against harlies.

dam that eldar army looks friggin amazingly painted, he should have taken painting (unless someone else had something else equally as mindblowing). Either way, its a super unique eldar list, and defintly not a net list, which also throws off a ton of people

Mafty wrote:dam that eldar army looks friggin amazingly painted, he should have taken painting (unless someone else had something else equally as mindblowing). Either way, its a super unique eldar list, and defintly not a net list, which also throws off a ton of people

It definetley was not what I expected from eldar, there's a few people with footdar who play at the store, which is what I was expecting. The best painting actually went to the Witchhunters army that I played in the first round, you can find it in my Batreps.

Gavo wrote:I expected to kill off his Harlequins easy with Barrage weaponry. I thought they were like the Tau Stealth Suits, where you can target them with Barrage. However, as my opponent explained to me, they can't be targeted at all.

This quote confuses me. Did he claim that the harlequins cannot be shot at unless a shot scatters onto them from another unit? I too thought that they were like the tau stealth suits or does this have something to do with barrage only? It seems to me that you did not kill any of them...

Zaephyr wrote:

Gavo wrote:I expected to kill off his Harlequins easy with Barrage weaponry. I thought they were like the Tau Stealth Suits, where you can target them with Barrage. However, as my opponent explained to me, they can't be targeted at all.

This quote confuses me. Did he claim that the harlequins cannot be shot at unless a shot scatters onto them from another unit? I too thought that they were like the tau stealth suits or does this have something to do with barrage only? It seems to me that you did not kill any of them...

Changed it. For Stealth Suits, if you use Barrage weaponry, you can go around their stealth field generators by firing indirectly. For harlies, if they're beyond the vision range (2D6 x2 or whatever it is) you apparently can't target them. Don't know if this is false, but it was annoying. I think I killed one or two. Fortune is a very annoying thing.

When you see an opponent with such a beautiful army, you should be worried, it's probably his baby, he probably sleeps with it beside his pillow and carries a firedragon in his pocket at all times, so he probably knows his army very well, and is highly capable playing with it. The harlie + Eldrad combo is nasty, making him immune to long range fire.

The Eldar player in this rep is one of my best friends, and this made me lol.







And I wouldn't be surprised if you were right about the Fire Dragon...

Zaephyr wrote:

Gavo wrote:I expected to kill off his Harlequins easy with Barrage weaponry. I thought they were like the Tau Stealth Suits, where you can target them with Barrage. However, as my opponent explained to me, they can't be targeted at all.

This quote confuses me. Did he claim that the harlequins cannot be shot at unless a shot scatters onto them from another unit? I too thought that they were like the tau stealth suits or does this have something to do with barrage only? It seems to me that you did not kill any of them...

Hey, that's MY eldar army! Neat! That was a fun game, I'd never actually seen Marbo or Ratlings or Creed before. Great game Gavo, I wish you were around the store more often, I'd love a rematch.

Anyway, from the eldar FAQ:
"Q: Do Barrage weapons have to roll to spot a unit of Harlequins with Veil of Tears?
A: Yes. Barrage weapons must still roll to spot them, and cannot fire if they fail to spot them."
The trick, and the reason this always catches people up, is that Veil of Tears is not Night Fight nor does it obey any Night Fight rules or clarifications. So anything that affects Night Fight doesn't touch it. Hell, if Night Fight is in play and you want to shoot harlequins you actually have to roll both! Though to be honest they'd be a pretty terrible investment if that wasn't the case.

And yeah, I probably shouldn't have tried to dodge the ram result, I got called on that later and have since abandoned it as a strategy. I am sheepish.

As for sleeping with a Fire Dragon in my pocket, it would ruin his paint job. And Rambo the insane FD exarch who always survives to melt one more tank needs his paint job.

Anyway, here's some shots of some of my eldar stuff:

The Night Spinner


The Rangers


One of the Jetbike Seer Council


And just for fun, the whole damn Altansar Air Force

Yeah, it was great playing you, I had a great time. I've actually grabbed a couple of hellhounds, so let's see how your elf like fire. From a tank.

Anyway, my gaming group meets on Saturdays, generally, although this week we're meeting on Sunday. I would love to play you again, and I'm pretty sure my friends will too.

Gavo wrote:Yeah, it was great playing you, I had a great time. I've actually grabbed a couple of hellhounds, so let's see how your elf like fire. From a tank.

Anyway, my gaming group meets on Saturdays, generally, although this week we're meeting on Sunday. I would love to play you again, and I'm pretty sure my friends will too.

They hate fire! Especially awesome hellhound fire with range and AP. Hellhound fire is AP4, right? Hate it!

theironjef wrote:

Zaephyr wrote:

Gavo wrote:I expected to kill off his Harlequins easy with Barrage weaponry. I thought they were like the Tau Stealth Suits, where you can target them with Barrage. However, as my opponent explained to me, they can't be targeted at all.

This quote confuses me. Did he claim that the harlequins cannot be shot at unless a shot scatters onto them from another unit? I too thought that they were like the tau stealth suits or does this have something to do with barrage only? It seems to me that you did not kill any of them...

Hey, that's MY eldar army! Neat! That was a fun game, I'd never actually seen Marbo or Ratlings or Creed before. Great game Gavo, I wish you were around the store more often, I'd love a rematch.

Anyway, from the eldar FAQ:
"Q: Do Barrage weapons have to roll to spot a unit of Harlequins with Veil of Tears?
A: Yes. Barrage weapons must still roll to spot them, and cannot fire if they fail to spot them."
The trick, and the reason this always catches people up, is that Veil of Tears is not Night Fight nor does it obey any Night Fight rules or clarifications. So anything that affects Night Fight doesn't touch it. Hell, if Night Fight is in play and you want to shoot harlequins you actually have to roll both! Though to be honest they'd be a pretty terrible investment if that wasn't the case.

Stuff like that is why us eldar players get marked down as cheats.

Beautiful eldar army you have there. Good to see some imperial stomping.

No way that would fly with me. I don't need to spot them if they're out of LOS, and if they're out of LOS I can fire barrage like normally.

Of course, if I were firing barrage weapons normally, then the normal whatever special rule would apply. Also, I'd assume I'd need to roll for spotting if I wanted to subtract my BS.

But to say that I couldn't shoot at something I couldn't spot when I'm aiming for something I cannot see is ludicrous.

theironjef wrote:

Gavo wrote:Yeah, it was great playing you, I had a great time. I've actually grabbed a couple of hellhounds, so let's see how your elf like fire. From a tank.

Anyway, my gaming group meets on Saturdays, generally, although this week we're meeting on Sunday. I would love to play you again, and I'm pretty sure my friends will too.

They hate fire! Especially awesome hellhound fire with range and AP. Hellhound fire is AP4, right? Hate it!

S6 AP4. So anything but your jetbikes and harlies are going to char a little.

Ailaros wrote:No way that would fly with me. I don't need to spot them if they're out of LOS, and if they're out of LOS I can fire barrage like normally.

Of course, if I were firing barrage weapons normally, then the normal whatever special rule would apply. Also, I'd assume I'd need to roll for spotting if I wanted to subtract my BS.

But to say that I couldn't shoot at something I couldn't spot when I'm aiming for something I cannot see is ludicrous.

Fly? That's a quote from the eldar FAQ. That's canon, RAW, indisputable. It is indelible truth. They sky is blue, up is up, down is down, and you have to roll 2d6x2 inches spotting distance when targeting an Eldar Harlequin unit that has Veil of Tears, even if firing an indirect barrage weapon.

If it helps it to seem logical, remember that you can't place a barrage weapon template pre-scatter over an area that has no target in it. Per the BGB, you have to target something. In order to target the Harlequins, you need to roll against Veil of Tears.

It used to be balanced out in 4th edition by an unusual rule quirk, that Harlequins with VoT were ignored for purposes of target priority, and didn't provide cover to units behind them (because they weren't visible). In 5th it's really just a straight bonus, which seems reasonable since Rending got smacked with a nerf bat but the cost of harlequins (22 each with Kiss) sure didn't take the same nerf bat.

Edit:

Here's the wily bugger now (huh, I really neat to paint that belt gem)!

I always thought that the explanation of VoT was that it was basically a psychic power. It's not so much that you can't see them, but that you can't comprehend that they're even there. Only by actually seeing them up close (2d6 x2) can counteract the "confusion and terror", letting you fire in thier direction.

Firing blindly (because of night fighting etc. . .) is the weapons firing because they know something is there, but not exactly where. With VoT they flat out think the area is empty. At least that's how it all makes sense in my head.

ElCheezus wrote:I always thought that the explanation of VoT was that it was basically a psychic power. It's not so much that you can't see them, but that you can't comprehend that they're even there. Only by actually seeing them up close (2d6 x2) can counteract the "confusion and terror", letting you fire in thier direction.

Firing blindly (because of night fighting etc. . .) is the weapons firing because they know something is there, but not exactly where. With VoT they flat out think the area is empty. At least that's how it all makes sense in my head.

It is in fact a psychic power. Oddly that means it can be ignored by that one chaos dude who is listed as "immune to all psychic effects."

theironjef wrote: That's a quote from the eldar FAQ. That's canon, RAW, indisputable. It is indelible truth.

Try again:

Games Workshop wrote:The FAQs on the other hand are very much 'soft' material. They deal with more of a grey area, where often there is no right and wrong answer - in a way, they are our own 'Studio House Rules'. They are, of course, useful when you play a pick-up game against someone you don't know, or at tournaments (i.e. when you don't have a set of common 'house rules' with the other player). However, if you disagree with some answers and prefer to change them in your games and make your own house rules with your friends, that's fine. In fact we encourage you to shape the game around your needs and your taste. We firmly believe that wargaming is about two (or more!) people creating a gaming experience they are both going to enjoy. In other words, you might prefer to skip the FAQs altogether and instead always apply the good old 'roll a dice' rule whenever you meet a problematic situation.

I mean, unless there is a pretty good, if highly tortured, excuse spelled out in the codex I might believe it, but this would definitely get 4+ed in most cases.

Ailaros wrote:

theironjef wrote: That's a quote from the eldar FAQ. That's canon, RAW, indisputable. It is indelible truth.

Try again:

Games Workshop wrote:The FAQs on the other hand are very much 'soft' material. They deal with more of a grey area, where often there is no right and wrong answer - in a way, they are our own 'Studio House Rules'. They are, of course, useful when you play a pick-up game against someone you don't know, or at tournaments (i.e. when you don't have a set of common 'house rules' with the other player). However, if you disagree with some answers and prefer to change them in your games and make your own house rules with your friends, that's fine. In fact we encourage you to shape the game around your needs and your taste. We firmly believe that wargaming is about two (or more!) people creating a gaming experience they are both going to enjoy. In other words, you might prefer to skip the FAQs altogether and instead always apply the good old 'roll a dice' rule whenever you meet a problematic situation.

I mean, unless there is a pretty good, if highly tortured, excuse spelled out in the codex I might believe it, but this would definitely get 4+ed in most cases.

Heh. Well I'll tell you what. When I play you, you can tell me what rules or FAQ stuff you intend to ignore because you don't like them, and then I will do the same.

Though to be honest I'm not sure why you'd think you get to.

The ruling on barrage weapons being able to fire at targets they can't see in the BGB: "Barrage and ordinance barrage weapons can still fire at targets in the dark, but if they do and fail to roll a hit, they add an extra D6" to the distance scattered."

So why is that not 100% clear for your side? Because it's a ruling on how Night Fighting treats barrage, found in the Night Fighting section (pg 95). Veil of Tears isn't Night Fighting, none of it's rules are derived from Night Fighting, and applying Night Fighting rules to Veil of Tears would be adding new rules that aren't printed for it. The only rules that govern the operation of Veil of Tears are those found in the Eldar Codex and then an addendum in the eldar FAQ, both of which are pretty clear. To target the unit, roll for Veil of Tears, including barrage (with no provision for indirect barrage fire). You're welcome to try and argue that, but I think if you tried that at an official tournament ("I'd like to ignore this one line out of the GW FAQ, but not the rest of it, nor any of the info in my own army's FAQ, can I do that on a 4+?") you're gonna get a "no."