Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Good morning, Dakka!

My friend and I played a quick game last night (everyone involved wanted to get a decent night's sleep) that I thought I'd write up for my first battle report. This is my first battle report and I wasn't planning on writing this one up, so I didn't take notes or pictures. I think I can still provide a good description of the game, however, and I wanted to get some comments from the collective. I'm still very new to 40k - and miniature gaming at large - so feedback is greatly appreciated.

The lists:

The Al'tari Eldar (I've got a webpage started because I'm a huge nerd. If you want the backstory of the Al'tair, go here.)
-------------
HQ: Avatar
Troop: Guardians x 11, EML
Troop: Dire Avengers x 5
Fast Attack: Shining Spears x 3, Exarch
Heavy Support: Support Weapon Battery x 2, Shadow Weavers

Dark Angels
--------------
HQ: Chapter Master, combi-plasma
Troop: Tactical squad, Power Weapon Sgt, Missile Launcher, Flamer
Troop: Tactical squad, Power Weapon Sgt, Missile Launcher, Flamer

I'm still trying to learn my own army, so I have a terrible time remembering exactly what his is. There's a lot of "What does that guy have again?".

Mission
---------
We've been playing 5'th Edition rules, with 4'th Edition armies, using the 3'rd Edition missions, because there's about 50 of 'em instead of 3. Today we played Cleanse, a mission we both like because it has a decent balance between strategic play and straight killin'. The board is divided into quarters, and the winner is simply whoever controls the most quarters. Quarters can be claimed or contested by any unit over half strength or any vehicle which is not immobilized. Independent characters cannot claim quarters.

Deployment
------------
I won the roll to start so I chose the quarter that had decent cover closest to the center and Rich started deploying. We alternate units going Heavy Support, Troops, Elites, HQ, Fast Attack. He combat squads and puts two 5 man squads with missile launchers in his back corner. The more mobile elements deploy near the edges of his zone, one along the long edge, one along the short edge. His leader (whatever the heck that guy is!?!) deploys basically in the dead center of his quarter. I've got my artillery as near to his zone as I can while keeping them in cover. Shining Spears are near my short edge to allow a nice turboboost. Guardians are positioned behind a ruin where they can hide and use their EML. Dire Avengers are cowering in the corner, ready to run across the short edge and bunker down to claim/contest a quarter. The Avatar stands tall up near the center of the board.

To Battle!
-------------
Turn 1, Eldar:
Shining Spears turboboost at his closest squad. Dire Avengers start their move across the board. The Avatar advances. I leave my guardians where they are so I can pop a krak missile at the nearest enemy squad. I was hoping the krak missile would be more effective because a) stupid power armor, b) a 5 man squad is really hard to hit with any amount of scatter and c) even one dead marine has a decent impact at 500 pts. This of course backfired when I rolled a 1 to wound with the krak missile. The support weapons shoot at his other nearby squad and scatter badly on the first shot, but right back in the opposite direction with the second shot, clipping two marines. Rich is a little worried about strength 6, but laughs when he hears "AP -" and makes both armor saves. I remind him it's a volume of fire situation.

Turn 1, Angels:
The Heavy weapon squads fire krak missiles at the Avatar and Shining Spears. I lose a shining spear and the Avatar makes his invuln save. The other squads basically stay put, waiting for me to make a mistake.

Turn 2, Eldar:
The Dire Avengers find some cover just short of the quarter they are aiming for and stay there for a few turns. No need to have them exposed yet, and they've got plenty of time to move another 6 inches or so. The Avatar continues his advance and the shining spears poise for a charge, attempting to hide in some ruins for cover. If I remember right, the Guardians fire another missile but miss. Man these guys are inept. The support weapon battery more than makes up for it though. I place the blast marker covering three marines in the squad the shining spears are eyeing. The first blast hits. The second blast also hits. All six shots wound and Rich fails 5 of the 6 armor saves!!!. The squad is wiped out. I refrain from saying anything about volume of fire because even I know that was way better than I could have hoped for.

Turn 2, Angels:

The Dark Angels are a bit stunned by the loss of just about 25% of their forces, but appear to stick with their plan. The krak missiles keep flying at the Avatar, and the one remaining mobile squad advances ready to bring flamer/power weapon death to my guardians. I believe at this point the mobile squad also manages to somehow put a bolt pistol wound on my Avatar. (I need to have a talk with the Avatar about failing embarassing saves. Last game he was killed by an exploding Rhino.)

Turns 3 - 5:

I'm a bit fuzzier on the middle of the game, but it follows the same basic pattern. My avatar and guardians advance. His mobile squad advances. My Dire Avengers run into cover on the quarter next to my deployment quarter. His leader stays put. Many krak missiles are fired into the Avatar. The support weapon continues to rain down monofilament death, though at the expected rate now.

The important action is when my Avatar and the Shining Spear Exarch move into position to shoot at and the lock into combat with his leader. At this point I'm thinking I can just tie him up to avoid being shot by his missile launchers and then finish off the leader and have a free run at the nearest heavy weapon. At the bare minimum this should end up contestting his "home" quarter. Instead the Avatar absolutely obliterates his leader with a blast from the wailing doom. The invuln save is failed and instant death most certainly occurs. Now my avatar and Shining spear are left standing around like idiots in front of two squads of marines with missile launchers. Both are taken down.

His other squad, now down to a Sgt with PW and two marines, shrug off fire from half of the guardian squad (the others are out of range) and then assault in, winning combat by 2. I roll just high enough to fail leadership and we tie on the initiative test. The guardians are wiped out like, well a bunch of guardians in HtH with Space Marines.

Turn 6:

As the field now stands, he has two squads back in the corner of quarter 1 and one squad just straddling the line between quarters 2 and 3. I've got Dire Avengers in quarter 4. So 1 is his, 4 is mine, 3 is contested, and 2 is empty. The squad that wiped my guardians is uncomfortably close to the support weapon battery, almost certainly close enough to wipe them out with shooting and assault. I take the only action I have and fire the artillery at Rich's approaching marines. The shots scatter, but not terribly, and I manage to do 3 wounds. 2 saves are made and the marines fail their pinning test!!!

They're now pinned spanning the border of quarters 2 and 3, with my support battery in quarter 3. The marines won't have another turn to get up and kill my artillery, so those quarters are a net tie. Rich has one last chance to win the game; his missile launchers have LOS on my avengers in quarter 4. If he can kill 3 or more Dire Avengers I'll lose quarter 4 and he'll still have quarter 1 for a 1-0 victory. Two missiles score three wounds on my Avengers who now need to just make one 4+ armor save. I roll 1,3,4 and the Eldar just barely manage to squeak out a tie. Woo!

After Action Report
First of all, MVP of the match is clearly my battery of 2 Shadow Weavers. They caused virtually all the marine casualties and made that clutch barrage to win the game with a pinned squad. Second, I made a definite tactical error mid-game when I sent my Avatar and the Shining Spear at his HQ. Taking out a non-scoring unit that had no real good chance of wounding any units was silly. I should have attacked his 3 remaining marines - the ones that wiped my guardians. The guardians should also have stayed safe in the ruins until said squad was destroyed. Then I could have moved them up into another quarter and been holding 3-1 with him only having 2 remaining scoring units with almost certainly not enough time to kill off enough of my squads. Moving agressively into his heavily defended quarter and killing an unimportant unit was a bit dumb, but was a lesson learned.

Now, some questions about my unit choices. I basically never see battle reports with Shining Spears or Support Weapons. The Shining Spears I can kind of understand. I love the models and the concept, but I've yet to be able to use them very effectively. They just seem too fragile, and I haven't learned how to effectively get them into position for a charge without getting shot up first. Does anyone have similar experiences? Or some tricks for using them well? The lack support weapons, though, confuse me. 2 blast markers shooting at S6, with a 48" range, that don't need LOS or really care about cover, and all at a cost of 60 points? Add a third blast and it's just 90 points total? Why don't they get used more? Is it just because at a larger point value you want the Heavy Support slot for Falcons and the like?

I'm getting on a bit now, but I'd appreciate any advice or answer to those questions. Just be gentle with critiques! I'm still new.

Great report! Them Eldar, always eaking out as tie.

But on to your questions... Shining Spears are very expensive but can be used with deadly effectivness if they are alive. Anyone who knows that they are not normal guardian jetbikes will kill them unless another serious threat is around. Overall though, the points sink tends to scare people away. Oh and since max squad size is five any casualties they take will be significant.

Support Weapons: Die way too easily. I've never used 'em but that's about the only argument I hear about 'em. OH yeah they take up a heavy slot that prisms/lords/falcons can use... The Eldar heavy support slot is so full of fun.

Thanks! I was hoping I didn't provide too much or too little information. Next time I'll try to have pictures, which will be nice - at least for the models I have painted so far.

I guess I could see the support weapons being very fragile, AV10 guns w/ guardian crew wouldn't take much to bring down. In this particular game, I managed to keep them hidden and just lobbed fire over the wall.

I think I'm going to keep using the Shining Spears at least for a little while, since I'm not taking these guys to tournaments or anything. If I never get the knack I'll just make them into jetbikes or jetlocks or something.

No problem, remember! Have fun with it! Don't build a list you won't have fun with just because someone says a unit sucks. (This is obvious of course but many times people tend to forget just how important fun is!)

But one thing I do suggest (lol) is upping the shining spear squad to 5 and possibly bringing out a farseer (Eldrad if you have the poitns). Of course Eldar suffer a ton in the small games but as you go up in points you shall see the true synergy of Eldar!

Awesome battle dude. I suggest Yriel and Eldrad with a couple of warloks in between them. That squad can take on ANYTHING. Even Land Raiders or MONOLITHS!

I definitely plan on taking 5 shining spears (two via proxy for a while) when I can fit them in points-wise. In the few games I've used them, I've seen that they - more than, say, Harlequins - really need to take down their targets on the first shoot/assault combo. This probably also means they aren't very viable in small games. For only 5 points more, I could have taken a small squad of warp spiders, filling a very similar role but possibly being more effective due to higher volume of fire and having more durability through numbers.

I prefer Harlequins over the Shining spears...

Although in small games is where shining spears really shine.

Yeah larger games shining spears are glass cannons, but when numbers are small, they can wreak some havoc.

I use Shining Spears in every battle. More often than not they are the heros of the battle for me. The trick is (in 5th ed missions anyway, not sure about your 3rd, 4th, 5th conglomaration rules!) is to keep them in reserves. Let your opponent move in closer to your board edge. This can be done by baiting them with choice targets or by strategice objective placement (especially in spearhead deployment!) Often, if they have deepstrikers or Drop pods they will do it for you anyway. This allows you to move on to the table and assualt right away. From there it's all situational.

Good report, btw. Keep 'em coming!

Also, just checked out your blog. Cool fluff for your army!

Spears are best used to finish off a battered unit like that 3 guy marine squad that ruined your day or to insta gib characters with the S8 power weapon (or amount of S6 power weapons)
But generally speaking the eldar dex offers other units which do the same job for less points.

Why is your craftworld blatantly named after a video game character known for subtlety?

Decent report, congratulations on the win.