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I had a friendly game versus one of the more intimidating players in my local meta on the weekend; and here we go:

Mymeara
Farseer Bel-Annath (IA11) - Warlord trait +1 to charge distances
Wraithseer w D-cannon (FW)
5 Wraithguard w Spirit seer (spear and conceal) (Bel here)
13 Guardians w EML
12 Guardians w Scatter laser
6 Shadow Spectres w Exarch (Prism blaster + Cynosure) (FW IA11)
2x Wraithlords w EML + Scatter laser
Warp Hunter (FW)

CSM Doing this from memory and a few guesses
Sorcerer with jetpack, force sword, mastery 3 biomancy (warp speed, life leech and iron arm) Warlord trait was useless
20 Cultists
10 CSM w plasma gun w champion with pistol
10 Possessed w champion
6 Warp talons w champion (sorcerer here)
3 Obliterators
2 Maulerfiends w lasher tendrils

The table is 4x4 with ~ 50% terrain coverage having a ruined city with 2 avenues (big enough for tanks) running in an H shape (connected by 1 of the squares), 2 ruined squares (one in the middle, one in my deployment zone) and tight alleyways the rest of the way.
Mission: Emperors Will
OBJs: 1 in the ruined square in my DZ, 1 on the 1st floor of a ruined building in his DZ

Deployment
I deploy my eldar with a guardian squad on either flank (Scatter laser left, EML right), with my WG, Lords and the Seer to the left of the central ruined square in my DZ. The warp hunter and spectres deploy behind the LOS blocking walls of the square on the right.

The CSM deploy with the CSM squad and possessed on my left flank, Maulerfiends deploy one at the top of each avenue, warp tallons behind a massive LOS blocking ruin, Cultists on his OBJ, and Oblits on the 4th story of a massive ruin giving LOS to most of the battlefield (not to my spectres and hunter though)

Turn 1
Choas fail to seize the initiative. The Wraithseer receives Fortune and Deliverance (4+ FNP) and sits at the front of the spearhead of wraiths marching down the central avenue of the city. The warp hunter maneuvers to sit at the right entrance to the ruined square (scoring a 4+ cover save from terrain in the process). The spectres jump out 6 inches to see the oblits and both guardian squads march 6" forward. The ghostlight from the spectres insta-deaths an obliterator, the warp hunters D-cannon fires blind and consumes 3 cultists after scattering, the wraithseer shoots the warp talons and consumes 1. All other weapons do jack all. Spectres assault jump back behind LOS blocking terrain.

The oblits move further along the top story of the building to get a better view, the mauler fiends charge up their respective avenues, the warp talons charge forward from 1 ruin to the next, losing 1 in the process to a nasty collision with a stone wall. The possessed march down my left flank towards the scatter laser guardians with the CSM squad. They open fire on the guardians, but I get a 4+ cover save from the ruin in between. 1 Guardian dies in all. The oblits open up on the warp hunter, who now can't shoot next turn and is on 2 HP.

Turn 2
Fortune and Deliverance go up on the wraithseer. I'm a bit worried at how close the Maulerfiends and the possessed are to my lines. My right flank guardians scoot into the ruined square and secure my objective. The warp hunter moves flat out over to my left flank. The spectres move out into the open to get LOS on the obliterators. The wraith anvil trudges forward towards the pair of mauler fiends, reaching the left side of the central square. The wraithseer and 1 wraithlord open up shooting on the closest maulerfiend and take a hull point off. The other lord and the guard shoot the warp talons (who have a 4+ cover save) and manage to kill 2 who promptly fail their leadership test and fall back. The spectres consume another obliterator in a massive ghostlight blast (before jumping back behind LOS blocking terrain). The guardians on my left flank open up on the possessed with their catapults and scatter laser, 3 die to the 24 shots. Hoping to tarpit his combat units - I charge the guardians into the possessed; and charge the wraithseer and wraithlord into the maulerfiend. The guardians kill 2 possessed (I know...) but are wiped out in return. The wraithseer and lord knock 1 more hull point off the maulerfiend and suffer no retaliation. The maulerfiend promptly recovers 1 HP from It Will Not Die!

The warp talons rally and move forward. The possessed maneuver themselves to assault the warp hunter (oops on my part) and the unengaged mauler fiend trundles up towards the wraithguard. The surviving obliterator opens up on the wraithguard closest to the warithlord with a plasma cannon, hits and kills a wraithguard and puts a wound on the lord. In the assault phase, the mauler fiend charges the wraithguard and loses a hull point to a lucky wraithcannon shot, and loses a 2nd hull point to Bel-Annaths singing spear; but kills 2 guard in return. The possessd charge the warphunter and promptly wreck it (the wreck blocking access to the ruined square from that side). They consolidate away from the carnage back up my left flank to regroup with the CSM squad. The wraithseer and lord manage to pull yet another HP off the maulerfiend and suffer nothing in return. The mauler fiend in combat with bel-annath regens 1 HP from It Will Not Die! (Current HP: Maulerfiend with wraithseer 1 HP, Maulerfiend with Bel 2 HP).

Turn 3
Fortune is put onto Bel and his Warlock escort, Deliverance onto the Wraithseer. The shadow spectres move out and vaporise the 3rd and final obliterator with a ghostlight attack and move forward in the assault phase. The unengaged wraithlord charges in to help the mighty farseer and his retinue. A fat load of rolls happen in the combat with the wraithseer and lord, but Bel-Annath is able to strip another HP off the maulerfiend which it promptly fails to regen, however the remaining wraithguard go down. Both maulerfiends are on 1 HP.

No a lot of movement happens, the possessed line up to charge into the wraithseer and fail horribly, and no one has anything to shoot at. The wrap talons with the sorcerer charge into the combat with Bel-Annath. In the combat phase; the wraithseer crushes what's left of the maulerfiend and it and the lord consolidate towards the possessed. Bel-Annath penetrates the demonic engines armour, promptly causing an explosion which consumes the warp talons, but their sorcerer survives. The sorcerer issues a challenge and the spirit seer answers. The spiritseer lands an unsaved wound onto the sorcerer and saves 3 wounds with it's rune armour (much to my opponents disbelief... oh and mine too). The combat holds.

Turn 4
Fortune is put onto Bel and his Warlock escort, Deliverance onto the Wraithseer. The wraithseer and his escorting Lord move towards the possessed which they promptly roast with flamers (well the Lord does) leaving 2 and the champion alive. The shadow spectres move and take 7 focused potshots at the cultists, killing 2. In the assault phase the wraithlord charges into the possessed; whilst the wraithseer requires 3 and rolls a double 1... but wait, he is still within 12 inches of Bel-Annath... 2 + 1 = 3 WOOHOO! The champion challenges and the wraithseer promptly turns him into sashimi. The Wraithlord finishes off the rest of the squad. The 2 then consolidate around a ruin towards the CSM squad. The sorcerer issues another challenge and promptly slays the warlock this time with no retribution. Combat stays locked due to fearless and stubborn.

The CSM squad fires everything it has at the approaching wraithlord, to no effect. The sorcerer challenges and promptly loses a wound to the wraithlord (T6 due to iron arm... bugger), causing nothing in return.

Turn 5
Fortune, Deliverance, you know the deal by now. The seer and lord duo move closer to the CSM squad, and roast it, killing 6, leaving 4 alive. The spectres miss their shots at the cultists. The lord charges in and loses a wound to plasma pistol overwatch. The wraithseer follows and is challenged. The champion dies a horrific death; whilst the lord cleans up the rest of the squad. The sorcerer challenges and I accept with Bel-Annath (he hasn't done much in a while). A fat load of nothing happens. The rampaging wraith duo consolidate towards the cultists.

At this point; all that is left alive for chaos is his sorcerer and half a squad of cultists. The cultists hunker down whilst the sorcerer and Bel have another duel, only to fail miserably.

The game then promptly ends before the cultists get burnt alive next turn.

Score
Chaos: 3 point OBJ, First blood - 4 total
Eldar: 3 point OBJ, Line breaker - 4 total

This is the 5th game I have played so far with this set up (although the 2nd with the Warp Hunter... I was using 2 D-cannon artillery platforms before). So far this army has only been drawn against at worst in the local meta. I am very happy with how it performed in this game. As said above, the CSM player is one of the more intimidating players in the local meta and he himself was very shocked at how the space elves performed. I admit that I got very lucky at some stages and that the game was on a knife edge with the maulerfiend combats dictating where the game would go. I really do hate the "must declare challenge, must accept challenge" of his CSM's. It allowed his sorcerer to just keep going as I couldn't whomp him with both Bel and the Lord at the same time. Oh if only it had gone 1 or even 2 more turns longer...

I usually switch Bel's 3 powers out for Pyromancy (love it versus Tau... no you don't get cover saves against this); but I wanted the Fortune just to keep the Farseer and Wraithseer around longer. The lack of warding runes on Bel is troublesome BUT I like the pyromancy deck sooooo much.

I admit that this is a very unorthodox Eldar army. It isn't particularly fast (outside the 1 skimmer and the spectres) and it is very low on numbers. At my local GW we play on 4x4 tables; so the speed and range isn't an issue; in fact having slower harder hitting units is more beneficial as a massive turbo boosting to get out of the way range of jetbikes is hindered somewhat. And flyers spend 1, maybe 2 turns on the table max.

I have a tournament coming up at the local GW; where I will probably versus this player again. I will also be expecting either an IG platoon spam or DE raider/venom army, 3 doom scythe necron force, a green player tau army and 2 other players who I don't know what they will field.

Well, I am working on a khornate CSM army, and I don't really like the looks of that one. The sorcerer doesn't fit with the khorne fluff, I generally don't like cultists, he had warp talons for gods sake. Well, congrats on winning and good luck at the tourney!

I love that +1 to charge power. I can't count how many times it has saved my bacon(I almost always roll command in my footdar, just to hit a six)

Warp hunters are still fast right? You can just zoidberg away at full tilt should you end up shaken.

Nice job roasting those oblits. I normally have to take them out the hard way, making me want some shadow specters even more!

Interesting with the odd numbers of guardians. Is it worth the extra bodies, when you could instead get another wraithguard or some upgrades elsewhere?

The odd number is because of the following:

I used to run a 140 point artillery group instead of the 125 point Warp Hunter (2 d-cannons and a conceal lock).

In that list I ran 12/11 guardians to make up a 25 point deficit gap to 1500 total (as opposed to the 10/10 I was running). When I gained the extra 15 points I just added 2 more guardians. The extra bodies have come in useful. My 13 man unit in the game before this, charged (and got counter charged) 3 Space Wolf Frost Wolf riders with storm shields... put 3 wounds into the 6 wound unit before Bel-Annath rocked up and put in 1 more wound and they ran. I lost 9 guardians for my trouble, but that left me with 4. Enough to limp to an OBJ and win the game.

I only own 5 WG models, am scraping together the $102 for another 5 pack.

The Specters are AMAZING. S10 AP2 blast with reroll to hit (scatter) on BS5 at 36" range? OM NOM NOM NOM. I find these (expensive) bad boys to really punch hard. I've had 1 game where they got eaten by necron wraiths (oops); but other than that they've smacked the gak out of anything they shoot. I had a game versus a nid hoard and the look on the players face when I put 21 S5 AP4 hits onto their gaunt squad from the 5 unfocussed blasts... I think points wise they're spot on. You get a shooty versatile unit that is mobile and when at range (12"+) has a 4++ save. Yes they constitute 1/6th of my army points; but they're so worth it. The Exarch alone is 72 points (eek).

Great BatRep!!

I would like to see some pictures though

Also I would gladly see BatReps from your coming tournament, especially vs Venom spam

Great batrep! I think Warp Talons are fearless... Might want to check.

Nice work, thanks for posting

A. I didn't have my camera on me and my phone was on about 5% battery and charging behind the counter.
B. My army isn't painted yet and the bits that are are from my 15yo self dabbling with craftworld colour schemes.

I will look at taking some photos and getting reps up for the friendly tourney this coming weekend.

One of the other opponents I found out is a nasty Space Wolves player who takes 2 Land Raiders at 1500...

And thanks for all the compliments everyone was my first bat rep.

syranas wrote:
The odd number is because of the following:

I used to run a 140 point artillery group instead of the 125 point Warp Hunter (2 d-cannons and a conceal lock).

In that list I ran 12/11 guardians to make up a 25 point deficit gap to 1500 total (as opposed to the 10/10 I was running). When I gained the extra 15 points I just added 2 more guardians. The extra bodies have come in useful. My 13 man unit in the game before this, charged (and got counter charged) 3 Space Wolf Frost Wolf riders with storm shields... put 3 wounds into the 6 wound unit before Bel-Annath rocked up and put in 1 more wound and they ran. I lost 9 guardians for my trouble, but that left me with 4. Enough to limp to an OBJ and win the game.

I only own 5 WG models, am scraping together the $102 for another 5 pack.

The Specters are AMAZING. S10 AP2 blast with reroll to hit (scatter) on BS5 at 36" range? OM NOM NOM NOM. I find these (expensive) bad boys to really punch hard. I've had 1 game where they got eaten by necron wraiths (oops); but other than that they've smacked the gak out of anything they shoot. I had a game versus a nid hoard and the look on the players face when I put 21 S5 AP4 hits onto their gaunt squad from the 5 unfocussed blasts... I think points wise they're spot on. You get a shooty versatile unit that is mobile and when at range (12"+) has a 4++ save. Yes they constitute 1/6th of my army points; but they're so worth it. The Exarch alone is 72 points (eek).

I too have had guardians kill...well..a lot. People should keep underestimating them, so I can continue winning with them!(Once killed typhus and 5 nurgle terminators in combined CC+shooting with 10 guardians, scatter laser and embolden lock!) So extra bodies are not bad at all, but maybe a better place to spend points? Warlock with power?) YMMV

I hear you about shelling out for the WG...being a college student, I cant just casually drop that kind of cash.

I can really see specters working well as a support unit for WG or harlies, due to their similar survivalibility profile. My other army is tau, so I know quite well how great and annoying JSJ can be. Expensive, and I am sure they come with one hell of a learning curve, but I have been looking into a squad once funds allow. Overall, I have not found a game or situation where their shooting would be that critical, just sinks into my normal fire support. I plan to keep an eye out for a use; they are what I wanted out of a long ranged shooty aspect(beating the pants off dark reapers, and not taking a heavy slot)

I get the idea of using a warlock with power instead of 5 extra guardians however:

The guardians are one of the last things to die. If they get wiped out (like this the above report) it's because I was trying to tarpit with them or because I've put them somewhere stupid.

Most games at my local have a high terrain density; often mirroring a ruined city. So all in all, conceal won't be great. I have never failed a leadership test with them to this date. I have this miraculous ability to roll Ld8, but fail with Ld9, go figure; so embolden is a major YMMV.

With both of those powers out; I would rather take 5 extra bodies to shore up their numbers in case of a pie plate of happiness hits them rather than get a warlock for 1 of the squads.

Also 1 other note regarding the specters - the models are VERY tall and VERY top heavy. They need their bases weighted (I am about to hack up some old 3rd ed howling banshee models to cement under the bases) otherwise they tend to not like staying upright unless perfectly balanced and 0 wind speed.

I honestly envy you being able to use Spectres and IA as general.

At my place in most tournaments IA is not allowed so my 3 Hornets and Shadow Specters are left behind :(

awaiting your BatRep!

i dont really get the role of the possessed in the chaos list. If your gonna call it a khorne list squish some spawn and a jugger lord in there


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At least theyll keep up with the maulerfiends