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Hey all. This is, as the title suggests, is my first posted battle report.

While I know my list, my opponents is going to be slightly inaccurate as I am doing this from memory.

My list was

HQ's and Elites
Archon with shadow field and ghostplate, agonizer, soultrap, jinn blade, blaster, wwp, and combat drugs.
9 true born with dracon: PGL, agonizer. 3 blasters and 2 splinter cannons.
in Raider with DL, Night shields and Flicker Fields.

Succubus with Agonizer and haywire
10 Blood Brides: 2 hydra, 1 shardnet and impaler. Syren with agonizer with PGL

Troops:
3x 10 Warriors with Dark lance and Syberite
in Raider with DL, Night shields and Flicker Fields (The Shadowed Eye, the Drought of Agony, Virulent Blade)

Fast Attack:
6 Reavers with 2 cluster caltrops and gravtalon

Heavy support:
2 ravagers w flicker fields w Night shields ( Terror, dark serpent )
Talos w icor injector and ccw, haywire blaster

He had something like this

HQ:
Shas El with Plasma Rifle, and Missile Pod and Multitracker and 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards same load out as Shas el

Elites:
2x2 Crisis suites w Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multitracker, Shas,vre and 2 shield drones

Troops:
2x12 Firewarriors with Bonding Knifes and shas,ui all with photon grenades
in Devil Fish with disruption pods and multi trackers

Fast Attack
8 Pathfinders with 2 rail rifles and emp grenades, shas,ui with bonding knifes

Heavy support
Hammer head with multi tracker and disruption pods
2x2 Broadsides with shas,vre and targeting arrays, and 2 shield drones.................. well I am pretty sure that is exactly what he had.

the board was actually 1 inch short of 6 feet long but was exactly 4 feet wide.
I won first turn, we were playing an objectives game with 5 objectives, spear head deployment.
he failed to seize initiative

Dailis Akshal slipped his runed gauntlets over his lithe fingers. These gauntlets allowed him to safely channel the psychic power present in all eldar, and especially in him, into deadly blades of energy that would wound a rampaging carnifex as easily as a Mon'keigh whelp. Or even into a short ranged pulse of energy capable of obliterating the thickest armour. He created them centuries ago. Before he and his Succubus Queen met. Before he stepped out of the webway with her, into the Dark City. And before he ascended to the Rank of Archon after storming the throne room of the Shattered Blade kabal and mutilated the previous Archon and his bodyguard. And now he stood on the bridge of his personal Raider flanked by his most trusted Dracon and his best warriors.

He relished the great reaping to come. He had planned the raid on this Tau Sept world to perfection. The tau forces had been lured into splitting up, leaving the smaller force to guard the richly populated industrial city. And now the Shattered Blade would begin its invasion by crushing the remaining defenders in an abandoned imperial fortress complex 15 kilometers south of the city.

Deployment allowed me to make use of the many line of sight blocking buildings on the board, and a large fortress ruin in the boards center because it limited my opponents ability to set up multiple firing lanes.

Turn 1
Akshal ordered his force out of the webway, leaving his queen and her retinue, and the pain engine to arrive thru the mobile webway platform he carried at a more opportune moment.
The tau force was deployed in the ruins he now surveyed, a smaller but still potent force. As the raiders and ravagers shot from the yawning hole in real space, Akshal quickly designated 5 points throughout the complex that his forces would hold. These would be integral to not only the outcome of this battle, but to the reaping of wealth from this city.
He ordered the Shadowed Eye to dispatch its warriors to the nearest point and then join the rest of the raider flotilla behind the eastern wall of a fortress ruin in the center of the battle field. The Shadowed Eye warriors, under the command of recently appointed Syberite Olpesh, moved to set up a fire base on the first and nearest point.
Akshal directed the Ravager flotilla to veer to the south and prepare to strike from behind the primitive power generation facility there. He then contacted the leader of the reaver gang that had agreed to accompany his kabal, and gave them the coordinates they were to strike from. The greedy fools jetted of without second thoughts. "How simple! Promise them riches and happily to their graves they dance" he chuckled. Their deaths would protect his kabal from the ravages of tau gunfire, which although somewhat primitive, Akshal respected their capability for destruction.

The raiders clustered behind the southern wall of the dilapidated fortress and prepared to tear from cover like some demon from the shadows. Akshal dropped from his raider and prepared the discus that would open up a portal to the webway, and heaved the device over the wall of the fortress. thin traces of light laced and flicked over its surface as appendages reminiscent of a spiders legs extended. The light, now a deep violet, arced between the legs of the disc and with a woosh of displaced air, the portal was born. The sounds of explosions rent the air as nearly the full compliment of the mon'keigh battle suites assailed the doomed reavers, a transport, freshly loaded with the "fire warriors" as they call themselves, joined the cavalcade and after the smoke and flames cleared the reavers were nothing but smoke and ashe. Akshal allowed himself a smile as his ploy worked flawlessly. These tau would be unprepared for what was to come.

Turn 2
"Do as you were instructed" was all Akshal said as he lept back to the deck of the Tortured Heart, his personal raider. The Ravagers moved at combat speed out from behind the cooling stacks of the power generation plant, and lined up targeting vectors on the broadside squad in the ruins where the reavers were sent to die. The raider flotilla maneuvered within the shadow of the fortress wall and prepared to decimate the transport that had moved around the side of a ruined structure to assist its fellows in destroying the reavers. At this time Akshal heard a wispy, pained voice echo within his psionic communication array. "I... have.. arrived" said the voice. And the Pain engine materialized from the portal within the fortress. Like a symphony of death, the ravagers and raiders spewed forth their screaming beams of eldritch energy, the color of night, at their designated targets. The broadside team took the full force of 4 dark lances, dust shot into the air as the beams met their targets. Only one broadside and its drone protector remained, and after the seeing their brother fall, lost their nerve and ran for safety... yet their would be no rest for them.The Shadowed Eye spied the fleeing broadside and rushed forward at top speed to ensure the filthy coward would continue its pathetic dash for safety. The technologies of the Mon'keigh protected their transport from the lances of Akshals raider flotilla, but the talos whipped its tail in a vast arc and lobbed a haywire grenade at the obstinate vehicle and in a shower of electrical discharge, the transport erupted into smoke and flame, its passengers bailing out of the now floating wreck.

The Mon'Keigh' responded with all the fury they could muster, and a squad of their pathfinder scouts marked the talos, while their 2 heavy rifles attempted to knock down the ravagers that had only earlier vaporized one of their superiors where he stood, leaving the Terrors crew stunned from the impact of the solid round but did no lasting damage. The crisis suits rushed out of cover once more to remove the Shadowed Eye from their presence, one of their squads split of and utilized the mark from the pathfinders to wound the Pain Engine. With a violent explosion the Shadowed Eye split in two and then fragmented, its flames engulfed the crisis suits and the nearby squad of fire warriors killing three of their number. The Raider even damaged a few of the suits that destroyed her. But that was not her greatest victory as she had successfully run down the fleeing broadside silencing its cannon for good. Akshal nodded with approval at the sacrifice. He would use it to his advantage. He grinned in anticipation as he watched the battle suits jump back down into the ruins, and out of sight.

Turn 3
The Ravages,Terror and the Dark Serpent, shot into the protection provided by the space between the fortress ruins and cooling towers while the Terror's crew rushed to recalibrate the equipment that was disturbed by the impact of the snipers round. Akshal gave the command, and the flotilla of raiders burst from cover screaming to thier objectives. The Drought of Agony and the Virulent Blade flew a long "u" to bring their lance to bear on the only remaining group of broadsides, their weapons bringin down one of the solid drones accompanying the hulking battlesuits. And with its crew silent as the grave, and its engines screeching like a demon from hell, the Tortured Heart sped for the epicenter of the Mon'keigh defense.

Akshal, and Teimrxs his dracon, along with the trueborn leaped from the deck of the Raider, and rushed forward between the nose of the downed tau transport and the ruined structure that sheltered the Mon'keigh battle suits. He could smell the fear that permeated the air. And as they rounded the corner, the majority of his trueborn split off to engage the remains of the fire warriors at the rear of the useless vehicle. He and his dracon however had a more sensitive target, the Tau commander and his 2 Battle suit bodyguards . And as the two crashed into the massive battle suits, Akshal directed all the fury and hate he held, into his gauntlets, bolts of turquoise energy sprouting from his hands, and into his cloak, which flowed into a dark mist that enshrouded his form. With a wail of absolute elation the two Dark warriors ripped the Mon'Keigh commanders suit to ribbons, his drones falling to the ground. Behind Akshal the trueborn roared with delight as they eviscerated a number of the fire warriors, and with almost no return casualties. At this, and upon seeing their commander fall, the fire warriors and the last remaining bodyguard battle suit lost their resolve and attempted to run. The pain was exquisite as the true born cut the fleeing blue creatures to ribbons. Their shrieks of agony a sonnet. There was a burst of pain that Akshal reveled in as he pressed his palms together and lanced his psychic energy into a beam that speared the failed body guard as it attempted to run before it had moved 10 meters. High on the pain that they had gorged on, Akshal and his trueborn rushed forward blindly toward their next target, unaware of the retaliation that they would receive.

The tau directed nearly all of their remaining firepower into Akshal and his squad. Their missile racks were emptied, and their energy capacitors ran dry as the crisis teams that remained in the ruins opened fire, assisted by the remaining broadside team, enraged by the loss of their commander. And as the smoke cleared, the 1 remaining trueborn, Atelai an eldar of clear and quick mind, dragged the remains of her drachon, and Akshal around the side of the ruins and slumped down. Triggering her comm array, she called for marking of their corpses for retrieval and resuscitation.

Turn 4
Iktria, the succubus queen of the Shattered Blade kabal, raged at the news of her lovers fall. She bade her brides follow her, and they rushed from the webway. The oval disc of energy blazed with dissipating energy as they departed, the raider Drought of Agony shot over head into the courtyard ahead and the massive pain engine, lumbering toward a ruined structure, to her right. The ravagers, now recovered, sped from hiding, and loosed a punishing salvo at the remaining broadside team. The beams found their marks and the last shielding drone and one of the broadsides were vaporized, the remaining suit broke from cover attempting to run and jumped down from its perch to the ground.

Acquiring the location of the crisis suits responsible for her lovers death from Syberite Olpesh, who had seen the indecent from his post near the original Invasion Portal, Iktria led her brides around the northern tower of the fortress. With a burst of speed they rushed into the crisis suit team that had dealt the death blow to her lover, and moved out of the ruins to fire on the remaining true born woman who had preserved her husbands remains. The Mon'Keigh scouts stood from their hide at the tower to the west and fired rapid bursts of plasma bolts into the Blood brides felling one of the gladiators before she could dive for cover. This slowed their advance enough to blunt their charge and when they reached the battle suits, they only managed to fell a drone and to sever the leg of one of the massive machine carapaces. But even in the swirling melee that claimed the life's of 3 of her brides, Iktria laughed aloud at the joyous screeches of the pain engine as it leaped over the ruins and whipped its bladed and barbed appendages into the battle suits that had stayed in the building for protection, leaving their shredded and mangled bodies lying, blood mixing with mechanical fluids on the heaps of rubble.

A new form shot around the tower occupied by the Mon'keigh pathfinders, dust swirled as its gravitic thrusters bore it aloft. A battle tank, a hammerhead the blue creatures called it, spun its cannon online with the Ravager "Terror," and with the whir of electrical servos discharging, sped a solid shot round through the Ravagers hull, wrecking it. As the flames billowed from the Terror, yet another Mon'keigh transport sped to the base of the tower of the Pathfinders.

"I must stop playing with you now little Mon'keigh"said Iktria" You will have the special honor of being tortured for months on end to revive my lover." And with that she jumped over the lead battle suits swinging armature, and thrusting the blade of her agonizer into the cockpit severing the lower spine of the suits pilot, her sisters dragged down and incapacitated the other suit as well. She bounded west followed closely by her brides, towards the last surviving crisis suit who was running from the overjoyed pain engine.

Turn 5
Iktria and her brides Rushed into combat with the fleeing Battlesuit and mercilessly cut it down. Leaving its sparking and bleeding hulk to degrade behind them as the moved to witness the spectacle that was the Pain Engine at play.

The raider Drought of agony, relieved of its position in the fortress by the Virulent Blade, engaged its engines fully and broke from the ruined fortress moving at maximum speed for its assigned objective due east of the Ravagers . The Dark Serpent sped toward the Mon'keigh battle tank. moving close enough to no longer be effected by the image caster the tank was equipped with. And now with a clear target, the warships crew opened fire, 1 lance successfully bypassing the Armour and striking the vital power capacitors. Smoke billowed from the wrecked vehicle as it listed on its gravitic sled, its main cannon hanging impotent and un-powered.

The Pain Engine finally finished the Battlesuit it was toying with, and tossed the mutilated shreds of the Mon'Keigh onto its fellows, and broke from the ruins.

The pathfinders saw the monstrosity emerging and opened fire, and to their horror, it merely shrugged of the plasma bolts and solid shot rounds as if they were flies and continued lumbering towards the fleeing broadside. The broad side fired its massive cannons at the beast, and realized in dismay that its life would end before it could kill the Pain engine.

Turns 6 an 7
The Dark Serpents crew spied the hiding pathfinders atop the tower and laughed.. their lofty perch would not save them. And with a terrifying wail their engines carried them into the Mon'keighs midst. The Mon'keigh could not hold against this, and with startled cries rushed down from their roost, to the ground below and ran north. The Drought of Agony, now settled on its post, took aim with two dark lances at the lone tau transport. In spectacular fashion. Flames erupted from the vehicles vectored engine housings as the fire warriors inside bailed out surrounded by billowing smoke. The Pain engine, ecstatic at the arrival of new play things, rushed into their midst, the blood flew along with limbs as the helpless creatures tried to run, but the murderous Pain Engine crushed them all before they could do so.

Iktria was elated at the sport they witnessed. And seeing that the battle was over she decided to enjoy the spectacle. The fleeing Pathfinders ran, screaming in their odd tongue as the Pain engine, fueled by the agonies it had inflicted, rushed with new speed towards them. The sprays of blood and gore, and absolute terror that emanated from the massacre were intoxicating. And as the last Mon'Keigh defender died, Iktria and her brides moved to bear the body of her lover Akshal,to their private torture chambers where his broken form would be interred for revival. She smirked, for now the reaping of this rich city would begin. And with that thought in mind she disappeared back into the realm between realms


Well folks that is pretty much how this battle went. I say that because while this sounds like a fanboy "my army is the winz all the timz and nevr gets hurt" story, it really was a massacre. It was a complete tabling and the dice rolls kept it going till turn 7. I ended up holding 3 objectives aswell. It was loads of fun to play and to recount. My opponent just couldn't stop the rush. And the sacrificial units didn't hurt me at all.... I was miffed that my Archon FINALLY kills an enemy HQ and gets str6... and then promptly fails the first 2+ save I allocate on him, from a str 7 wound and dies XD. But it was SO much fun, and even my opponent had fun (no kidding ) Thanks for reading and I truly hope you enjoyed it.
And this concludes my first battle report.

Pics?

Ya and sorry there are no pics... doh!!!

That's cool man!

Um is that a.. your BR is cool? or the no pics is cool? lols! I am actually planning a rematch with the guy I played, and will be taking pictures of that game as my army will be almost entirely painted at that point.

A little bit of both? I enjoyed reading the battle report lol, but no pics is cool too...still a good read. I look forward to seeing some pics in the future though!

I loved the way you did this Battle Report. I hope to hear more from you soon.

Maybe with some pics next time.

Arsenic42 wrote:I loved the way you did this Battle Report. I hope to hear more from you soon.

Maybe with some pics next time.

Oh stop it Jk. I appreciate it. I actually spent along time writing that out, as I had to do it almost completely from memory. But It was LOADS of fun to write. I especially liked naming my vessels. But the next step of the invasion will be coming up in the next several hours. A nice 1500 pt cap and control with the tau... itll even have pictures