Wow. I'm surprised to see that about 30% of the pollers have confidence that my Draigowing can take this one. That's probably more confidence than I have in myself.
Lol.
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PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:
Ok, let's take a look at some best-case and worst-case situations. Assume my paladins (with Draigo and Librarian) will be getting cover.
BEST-CASE SCENARIO
My hood blocks all of Eldrad's attempts to Guide his units and Doom mine. I successfully cast Shrouding for 3+ cover.
So 30 fire dragons fire at my 12-man paladinstar unit.
30 shots x 2/3 hits x 5/6 wounds x 1/3 penetrate cover = 5.55 wounds, or 6 wounds. Draigo takes 1W and 5 paladins die.
WORST-CASE SCENARIO
I fail to block any of Eldrad's powers so 2 units get Guided and my squad gets Doomed. I peril and fail trying to cast Shrouding.
First off, the 2 guided units shoot:
20 shots x 8/9 re-rolled hits x 35/36 re-rolled wounds x1/2 penetrate cover = 8.64 wounds
Then, the unguided unit:
10 shots x 2/3 hits x 35/36 re-rolled wounds x1/2 penetrate cover = 3.24 wounds
So a total of 3.24+8.64 = 12 wounds taken. Basically, almost the whole squad is wiped out except Draigo.
And that's only 1 turn of firing! If there are any survivors, I may be able to kill off 1 squad, or 2 at most. There will still be another 1-2 squads to try to finish off my paladins next turn.
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And then there's the fact that he has 9 fast skimmers that can try to tankshock my paladins if he wanted to. Statistically, with LD10, I should fail 1 out of every 6
LD tests. So this is another strategy my opponent may employ. There are some risks to it, but just 1 successful tank shock would mean my 1100pt+ unit would most likely be out of play.
Finally, in C&C, he can just contest my objective with numerous skimmers at the end while saving some to protect his. He's got much better mobility than me.
Overall, with just a rough guessimation, I think my chances of winning in this scenario is 10%, my chances to draw is 20% and his chances to win is 50% and his ability to table me is 20%.
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Deployment:
Map of the terrain.
I deploy right in the center of the map, slightly spread out in terrain. My objective is right smack-dab in the middle of the map.
SabrX deploys Eldrad with dire avengers in the star-engined wave serpent. His objective is way in his corner.
For my Grand Strategy, I take Scouts and move my terminators back.
And then I make a huge mistake. I forgot about my Turn 1!
But SabrX was kind enough to let me go second so for this battle, assume he stole the initiative.
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Eldar 1
His whole army comes in. The front 3 serpents (with fire dragons) move flat-out. The middle-rear 3 are the fire prisms. Eldrad's serpent drops off the dire avengers near his objective and then move flat-out.
1 fire prism sees my paladins and fire its S9 blast but I pass my cover save plus Draigo's invuln.
Draigowing 1
Stormraven and 2 dreads come in. Soladin stays in reserves. Stormraven moves flat-out.
Paladins advance. My plan is to multi-charge with Might of Ancients.
16 psycannon shots, of which 8 are master-crafted, only manage to shake 1 fire dragon serpent.
Stormraven's Power of the Machine Spirited (
PotMS) twin-linked multi-melta fails to penetrate the serpent's hull, and both dreadnoughts fail to see in the dark.
On top of all that, paladins try to assault but roll
for difficult terrain.
Eldar 2
Eldrad successfully guides both units of fire dragons, but I hood his attempt to doom my paladins.
I catch a bit of a break here. Right serpent disembarks their fire dragons and then moves flat-out to tankshock my paladins. I choose to Death-&-Glory. Needing 5's to penetrate, I only roll a 4 to glance. Now I need to roll a 6 or I lose my hammerdin. I then proceed to roll a
! Since he moved flat-out, his immobilized serpent becomes a wreck.
I catch another break here. He disembarks his 2nd squad of dire avengers and torpedoes his wave serpent about 20"+ at my raven. Hurling his S10 skimmer at mine (and I can't avoid it), he then rolls a
and fails to penetrate my armor. In return, I wreck his 2nd serpent!
Middle serpent moves flat-out and tankshocks me. Luckily, I pass morale.
The rest of his serpents shuffle around.
He disembarks the rest of his fire dragons.
Time for some pain as we go onto Shooting!
Fire Prism and eldar missile launchers only manage to stun my raven.
Miraculously, my librarian manages to cast Shrouding for the 3+ cover. Even more miraculously, after 20 twin-linked and 10 normal melta shots, I only lose 3 paladins and Draigo takes 1W.
Draigowing 2
Payback time. Draigo splits off from the squad. He goes one way, and the unit goes the other.
Psyflemans shoot poorly. Despite no cover, I only manage to stun 1 prism with 8
TL S8 shots.
BTW, stormraven perils while trying to cast Fortitude and re-stuns itself. It does pop smoke though.
Charge!
Paladins wipe out 1 unit of fragons (I like that term
). Draigo rolls poorly in assault and only kills 2. They stay locked.
Eldar 3
Eldrad successfully dooms Draigo. My librarian blocks his attempts to guide his fire dragons.
Eldar skimmers shuffle around. Fire dragons get back into their skimmer and he moves flat-out back towards his objective.
Note - I realize that we played this wrong, as the skimmer cannot move flat-out after a unit embarks or disembarks from it. We just forgot about that rule in the heat of the battle.
Anyways, my opponent has changed his strategy. Now, instead of trying to kill my paladins (who are in cover), he is trying to defend his objective while using his skimmers to contest mine.
1 skimmer goes to contest, tankshocking my paladins in the process (I believe it went flat-out). I pass my morale check.
His shooting manages to immobilize my stormraven.
In assault, Draigo kills 4 dragons and breaks the unit. He then consolidates forwards.
Draigowing 3
Soladin comes in and scatters back a little. Dreadnoughts advance.
Both Draigo and paladins advance.
Paladins fire their psycannons at the frickin, no, I meant fragon serpent.
Just 2 are in range to shoot, but that is enough to wreck it. Fragons spill out and get pinned.
5-man paladin unit disembarks from the stormraven.
Shooting from 5-man paladin unit and psyflemans stun both fire prisms as well as immobilize the front prism.
I also wreck the 3rd fire prism (near his objective).
Draigo then assaults the immobilized prism. He fails to cast Hammerhand and then fails to damage it.
Eldar 4
Serpent moves flat-out again. Paladins pass morale on a 10 from the tankshock (good thing I didn't split up my librarian). Fire dragons keep on falling back.
Dire avengers disembark from their transport.
Serpent then moves flat-out to tankshock my paladins and ram my raven. Paladins pass morale. Unfortunately for my opponent, he rolls a
for his dangerous terrain test (landed on the wrecked serpent), thereby wrecking yet another wave serpent.
Wow! 3 attempts to tankshock and/or ram my units end up with 3 of his own vehicles wrecked! Man, I feel for him.
On the bright side, his dragons who are falling back shoot at my paladins and kill 3 (I fail to cast Shrouding this time). I pass morale.
In assault, Draigo, who is still in base-to-base with his immobilized prism, wrecks the skimmer.
Draigowing 4
Grey Knight movement.
Draigo and 5-man paladin unit closes in on his objective.
Paladins shoot and wipe out 1 unit of 5 dire avengers.
Other paladins shoot at his pinned fragons but only kill 1.
Draigo assaults the last prism. I believe I successfully cast Hammerhand. Because it was stunned last turn, Draigo wrecks it.
Eldar 5
Overview of the top of Turn 5.
This will be the last game turn as we are out of time.
This is also where my camera dies and so we had to change cameras.
His 2 last remaining skimmers (1 with Eldrad in it) go to contest my objective.
Other unit of dire avengers go to screen out his avengers on his objective. Fire dragons move on top of the wreck to try to shoot down my paladins. Unfortunately, he only rolls a 3 for the difficult terrain test and only a couple will be able to see and shoot my paladins.
Paladins pass cover against his fire dragons (only 2-3 could shoot, the rest did not have
LOS).
His other unit of fire dragons shoot at Draigo. Draigo passes all his invulns.
His screening avengers run towards my paladins but only get 1".
Draigowing 5
Right now, he is winning. If I can contest his objective
or wreck both prisms (and prevent Eldrad from contesting), I will get the draw. If I can do both - wreck both serpents
and contest his objective - then I will win.
Paladins advance.
Note - this photo actually took place on my Turn 5, but I showed it on my opponent's Turn 4 to show his movement and also the position of his guys relative to his objective.
Dreads, soladin and paladins converge onto his serpents.
Overview of the bottom of Turn 5 after my movement.
Paladins shoot and wreck Eldrad's serpent, forcing Eldrad to disembark away from the objective (and out of contesting range).
However, 8 psyfleman
tl-autocannon shots and the
tl-multi-melta and
tl-lascannon from my stormraven only manages to wreck 1 gun. His serpent made all but 1 cover save!
So the only thing that I could do is to assault and pray for 1 last miracle. Both dreads and soladin charge. Soladin perils while trying to cast Hammerhand. He doesn't do anything.
So it's up to my dreads. Needing 6's to hit and 5-6's to pen with only 3 attacks each.....
....my dread blows it up!!!
Paladins assault the screening dire avenger unit.
I wipe them out and consolidate into contesting range.
With that we end the game as we had to leave.
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Grey Knights are contesting the eldar objective.
And claiming their own.
Victory to the Grey Knights!!!
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
7K Points of Black Legion and Daemons 
5K Points of Grey Knights and Red Hunters 
