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A game against a different mechanized eldar player. My list was at 1705 his was at like 1720 or so. I forgot a chimera when packing up for game night and my opponent graciously just dropped a fire prism to bring us closer to even in points (typically we play 1850).

My IG list

HQ
1 Company Command Squad
4 melta guns
1 Officer of the Fleet
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, hull heavy flamer

Troops
1 Platoon Command Squad
4 Flamers
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, hull heavy flamer

1 Infantry Squad
1 flamer
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, hull heavy flamer

1 Infantry Squad
1 flamer
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, hull heavy flamer

1 Veterans
3 melta-guns
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, hull heavy flamer

Fast Attack
1 Devil Dog w/ hull multi-melta
1 Devil Dog w/ hull multi-melta
1 Banewolf w/ hull heavy flamer

Heavy Support
1 Demolisher w/ hull lascannon, sponson multi-melta's
1 Demolisher w/ hull lascannon, sponson multi-melta's
1 Executioner w/ hull heavy flamer, sponson plasma cannons

The Opposing Eldar list

HQ
Eldrad
Yriel

Troops
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl brightlance
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl brightlance
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl brightlance
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl brightlance
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl eml
5 dire avengers, wave serpent, tl eml

Heavy Support
Fire Prism
Fire Prism

Mission: Secure and Control (the 2 objectives in deployment zones one)
Deployment: Spearhead

There was a large blocking piece of terrain in the middle of the table that most of the combat centered around plus some hills scattered here and there.

Eldar win the roll off and decide to go first.

Deployment:
Eldar Deploy line abreast with a solid wall of serpents and prisms. One 5 man squad is deployed on his objective which is placed in the far back corner. I deploy my heavy armor towards the center of the table to anchor that side of my battle line. I put the banewolf in front and a devil dog on the far side. Line up the chimera's and then put the veteran's so they can go either way, and my company command squad and another devil dog on the side of the quarter near my table edge. I deploy one infantry squad on my objective. My objective is the southwest corner, my opponent is the northeast corner.


Eldar turn #1:
The eldar decide to back off and play the range game. He moves a couple of wave serpents with bright lances into the Southeast quarter and destroys the chimera with my other infantry squad in it. He moves keeps everything else hanging back shoots and stuns my veterans chimera and the banewolf.

Guard turn #1:
Devildogs speed out 12 inch's on each of the flanks and take some shots at eldar vehicles doing no damage. I move the pcs up 12 into the southeast quarter and put my ccs right behind them and pop smoke. The demolishers and executioner move up and do some shooting but don't really hurt anything. Not looking good for the guard.

Eldar turn #2:
He moves a wave serpent down the table edge into the northwest quarter everything else stays about where it was and they open up on the advancing guard line again. The poor banewolf loses it's turret but thats it from the eldar in the North. The 2 serpents in the southwest quarter move back from the devildog and stun the chimera carrying the pcs squad.

Guard turn #2:
One of the demolisher's pivots on the spot and unloads at the wave serpent that moved into the northwest quarter and blows it up. The banewolf runs out front to provide cover for the advancing devildog. Shooting's a little better this round and the other demolisher, devildog, and executioner manage to stun both of the prisms. Devildog on the other side fails to do anything. The ccs moves around the stunned chimera and pop's smoke.

Eldar turn #3:
One of the stunned fire prisms ram the ccs chimera immobilizing it. The other waveserpents and prism maneuver backwards towards his board edge and don't do much damage. The two dire avengers that survied the crash from the last turn start moving towards my objective.

Guard turn #3
The ccs hops out of their immobilized chimera and downs the fire prism. The banewolf hauls butt down the north table edge towards my opponents objective. The pcs squads jets forwards 12 inch's as well and the vets move up to back up the ccs. I shoot the 2 dire avengers and do a couple of wounds they make their saves.

Eldar Turn #4
2 wave serpents make a break for it down the south table edge. The chimer with my pcs gets blow up and I lose 4 guys. Yriel and friends charge the devildog and the officer from the pcs killing both the tank and the officer. The banewolf is immobilized. The two dire avengers move up towards my objective some more.

Guard turn #4
The ccs orders the vets to fire on my target on one of the advancing wave serpents on the south side they only get 1 hit and fail to do anything. The ccs then tries to do the same thing and fails their roll and the serpent survives. The devildog keeps advancing towards the eldar objective. A couple of heavy flamers see all the dire avengers with eldrad and yriel dead (heres where battle psykers would have been awesome because they had to make a morale check). I have to move my guard squad back towards my objective.

Eldar Turn #5
The 2 wave serpents continue down the south table edge towards my objective. Eldrad and Yriel charge the two chimera's in front of them ripping all the weapons off of one and destroying the other.

Guard turn #5
A demolisher pivot's and takes out one of the fast moving wave serpents, pinning the squad inside. The ccs tries to take down the other one but fails. The vet's shoot and succeed in taking it down and assault and kill the survivors.

Eldar Turn #6
A wave serpent with eml and the surviving prism move to take shots at the squad guarding my objective, killing 1 model. The 2 dire avengers continue to move up. Eldrad mind wars a guardsman who wounded him with a lasgun and spins the demolisher using eldritch storms which is then destroyed. They wipe out the guardsmen

Guard Turn #5
The guard squad rapid fires into the 2 avengers, does 1 wound wich is saved. The demolisher pivots again and destroys the wave serpent with the eml. The ccs destroys the other wave serpent with eml and the veteran's kill 4 out of 5 of the pinned dire avengers.

Eldar Turn #7
Eldarad and yriel destroy the executioner. Through some more shooting he gets the infantry squad holding my objective down to 3 models. He then charges in with the dire avengers. The avengers whiff all their attacks. The guardsmen respond doing 2 wounds and he fails both saves!! Guardsmen hold the line (I ended up making something like 3 leadership test with them, and every time it came up an 8 go go new sergeants!)

Guard Turn #7
The prism is mopped up by the command squad. Tie game.

At the end of the game the eldar had yriel, eldrad, 1-1 man dire avenger squad, 1-5 man dire avenger squad, and 2 wave serpents. I had a full ccs, a full vet squad, 3-man infantry squad, and a demolisher still mobile. Definitely a bloody and fun game.

Tank of the game: Demolisher

After thoughts:
I know other people swear by the executioner but I'm just not getting much mileage out of it. Over the course of the game it got a stunned result, a shaken result and killed 3 dire avengers. It's probably because of the armies I've been playing against but I'm really thinking about swapping it out for 3 hydra's.

The other thing that continued to perform were the demolisher's. Troop transports that get within 24 inch's of those behemoths just seem to evaporate. One demolisher destroyed 3 wave serpents in that game. The other took a ton of shots and did a lot of shaking and stunning.

The chimera's just couldnt stand up to the pounding from the wave serpents, and couldn't do much back in return. An outflanking set of chimera's or a valkryie/vendetta could have turned the tide for me.

Hm. So sounds like you've really been using the Devil Dogs and Banewolf for their Fast ability and not so much for their weapons, correct? Having played a couple games with them, what are your thoughts on them?

In this game I had to keep them moving 12 just to keep a gun within firing range of the fast moving eldar vehicles. The devildog's didn't do a ton of damage this game but they were losing half of their effectiveness because of having to move so fast. They also provide a distraction and keep your other tanks from getting shot as much, and they also provide your tank line with a nice av12 side .

I really like devildogs they help to increase your tank punch at range. This was my first time using the banewolf and all it did was run around providing mobile terrain (because of the army I was facing).

The key is the fast on the vehicles. It allows them to get ahead of your main battle line in dawn of war scenarios and still shoot, it also allows them to sweep around the flanks of your army and when they do get shaken being able to move them 18 inch's to reposition is great.

Thanks for the batrep Warmaster. I've been wanting to take my eldar out of deep freeze to throw a list against mech IG. I would have liked to see your opponent trade some avengers in for fire dragons, but he seemed to do fairly well with the light amount of anti-tank he had.

My executioner exists for these targets. Obliterators, iridium armor crisis suits, plaguemarines, plaguebearers, assault terminators, chaos terminators, broadsides, bloodcrushers, combat squads, wraithguard and all MCs with 3+ or 2+ armor.

It boils down to 2+ armor, MCs, and feel no pain. With the addition of units that consist of no more than 5-10 tough models, that spread out and marginalize large blast markers.

The demolisher can insta-kill oblits and crisis suits which makes up for the inconsistency you get with a single BS3 large blast, but it can only put a single wound on a lash prince/carnifex/hive tyrant/bloodthirster/GUO. And I just HATE when you get an 8 or 9 on your scatter distance, and basically throw away your turret shot. Thats a mostly psychological reason.

Hydras would have been spectacular against the eldar, And i really believe in 3x hydras 2x russes. If you select demolisher as your russ of choice, there isn't a lot of math I could use to convince you otherwise. Range and fire saturation are the pluses I would cite, and instant death and 30" range heavy tank kill would be your counter-points.

As to the game. Isn't it totally fun to play the aggressor. I've played a couple games now with mech IG where I was on the attack from jumpstreet and its insane how I started to win more and bigger when I'd drive out into no man's land to meet my enemy. Playing guard through the years I'm so used to lining the heels of my models against the table edge.

With the mech eldar player smartly refusing to close into your melta range, he allowed you to put pressure on his home objective. Pressure on enemy objective with a guard army in cap and control? Naw!

Harker outflanking... vendetta outflanking, vanquishers, HYDRAS all would have cut him down quicker, boxed him in and let you play your game with your special weapons.

Thanks again for the batrep

Shep wrote:Thanks for the batrep Warmaster. I've been wanting to take my eldar out of deep freeze to throw a list against mech IG. I would have liked to see your opponent trade some avengers in for fire dragons, but he seemed to do fairly well with the light amount of anti-tank he had.

I actually don't know if the fire dragons would have been better or not. They would have had to get close to me to do anything and I've been having a lot of luck popping anything that gets too close. Especially since he would have been wanting to go after the russ's. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures but my russes were getting cover saves from hellhound variants and chimera's almost the entire game so I don't think he would have been able to come in 12 and drop off within 6 to get the melta shots. He would have had to boost and try to stay alive for a turn.

Shep wrote:
My executioner exists for these targets. Obliterators, iridium armor crisis suits, plaguemarines, plaguebearers, assault terminators, chaos terminators, broadsides, bloodcrushers, combat squads, wraithguard and all MCs with 3+ or 2+ armor.

It boils down to 2+ armor, MCs, and feel no pain. With the addition of units that consist of no more than 5-10 tough models, that spread out and marginalize large blast markers.

Which I agree with for the most part and why the executioner is still in the list. The one thing I disagree with is about mc's. Maybe I'm just having bad luck scattering but on the whole I average 2 hits on an mc the rest scattering off into the middle of nowhere and end up dealing 1-2 wounds. I get that from sitting still and shooting the lascannon, 2 multi-melta's, and the demolisher. I also find that I have so many tanks out there I move my demolisher for 1-2 turns and then they just start pivoting around shooting at stuff from the center of the table.

Shep wrote:
Hydras would have been spectacular against the eldar, And i really believe in 3x hydras 2x russes. If you select demolisher as your russ of choice, there isn't a lot of math I could use to convince you otherwise. Range and fire saturation are the pluses I would cite, and instant death and 30" range heavy tank kill would be your counter-points.

As to the game. Isn't it totally fun to play the aggressor. I've played a couple games now with mech IG where I was on the attack from jumpstreet and its insane how I started to win more and bigger when I'd drive out into no man's land to meet my enemy. Playing guard through the years I'm so used to lining the heels of my models against the table edge.

With the mech eldar player smartly refusing to close into your melta range, he allowed you to put pressure on his home objective. Pressure on enemy objective with a guard army in cap and control? Naw!

My only problem there is what to use to make the hydra's? I've already converted up my devil dogs and some leman russ's with multi-melta sponsons. No clue on how to convert up the hydra yet. It's nice to see the army still be able to advance effectively. That was the one thing I was really afraid of was that too much fire power was going to be lost.

Shep wrote:
Harker outflanking... vendetta outflanking, vanquishers, HYDRAS all would have cut him down quicker, boxed him in and let you play your game with your special weapons.

Since we've been playing at 1850 lately I've got a few more points to work with than you. I'm actually pondering going back to two full infantry platoons in chimera's and upgrading one of them to al-rahem. I think 3 chimera's popping up on a flank with 4 melta's 2 flamers, 3 multi-laser's, and 3 heavy flamers could be a lot of fun.

My only problem there is what to use to make the hydra's? I've already converted up my devil dogs and some leman russ's with multi-melta sponsons. No clue on how to convert up the hydra yet. It's nice to see the army still be able to advance effectively. That was the one thing I was really afraid of was that too much fire power was going to be lost.

Thats my problem too, I really want to go 3x Hydra, 3x Vendetta, 2x Russ ( still undecided on Dem vs P-Russ ) but Im not going to pay for the forgeworld Hydras and there is not anything I can think of that will work for conversion.

Looks like ill be running 4 Russes until the new models come out this summer.

Warmaster wrote: Fast Attack
1 Devil Dog w/ hull multi-melta
1 Devil Dog w/ hull multi-melta
1 Banewolf w/ hull heavy flamer

Heavy Support
1 Demolisher w/ hull lascannon, sponson multi-melta's
1 Demolisher w/ hull lascannon, sponson multi-melta's
1 Executioner w/ hull heavy flamer, sponson plasma cannons

I've started seeing this in reports, people not using the Squadron rules and just taking three separate units. I think it is because tanks are so expensive that while people might be able to afford 3, there's no point in sticking them in the same squadron.

I feel this could be a potential large failing of the Guard Codex - options that don't get used because there's no point in using them and/or the player never has the opportunity to use them.

The Opposing Eldar list

Warmaster wrote:HQ
Eldrad
Yriel

*sigh*

"An Iyanden Autarch and an Ulthwe Farseer walk into an army list..."

Things like this make me really hate the current state of 40K.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Warmaster wrote: I've started seeing this in reports, people not using the Squadron rules and just taking three separate units. I think it is because tanks are so expensive that while people might be able to afford 3, there's no point in sticking them in the same squadron.

I feel this could be a potential large failing of the Guard Codex - options that don't get used because there's no point in using them and/or the player never has the opportunity to use them.

I think it's both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one side is that there are a ton of nifty new toys and they are all over the place in the codex so you can happily fill up the entire org chart instead of relying on a specific slot (for instance 9 heavy support vehicles). I think you will see artillery in squadrons, and sometimes 2 tank teams of russes. Valkryies and vendetta's I also see as possible squadrons if only because it's the only way to go all airborne. I've thought about running my devil dogs as a pair but you just run out of points at 1750 to 1850 to need to. Going up to 2000pts or above I can see some squadroning (is that even a word) happening.

Great report, Warmaster. Nice to see eldar rearing their pointy little heads a bit more.