I played my third game using the new Eldar codex last night.
Eldar vs Blood Angels
1500 points
Crusade (4 objectives)
Hammer and Anvil
My army:
HQ:
Eldrad (Warlord)
SpiritSeer (conceal/reveal, protect/jinx)
2 Warlocks (concealx2)
Troops:
Gaurdian Defenders (20 w/bright lance and star cannon-1 warlock)
8 WJBs(2 cannons, 1 warlock w/spear)
6 wraith guard (cannons)
5 wraithgaurd(scythes)
Fast Attack: Warp Spiders (10 w/exarch, fast shot, spinneret rifle)
Wave Serpent (scatter lasers, Holo fields)
Blood Angels
HQ: Librarian (warlord, terminator armour)
Techpriest
Troops: 2x5 scouts (1 with locator beacon, 1 with camo cloaks)
7 assault marines
2x 5
tac squads
Heavy Support: Land Raider
2x Devastator squads (same loadout- missile launcher x 2, plasma cannon and a las cannon)
Dreadnought (frag cannon, magna grapple, melta gun)
1 Rhino
We arranged the terrain and placed objectives thusly:
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(pictures to come once I can figure out how to post them)
I won the roll off and chose to deploy and go first and deployed like so: (pic(s)to come)
Scythegaurd started in the waveserpent. I always like to try for a little bit of misdirection whenever I am fortunate enough to go first while fielding Eldrad. He kept his deployment tricks special rules intact from the last codex so if I go first then I know I can redeploy at least two units anywhere in my deployment zone after both sides have deployed all forces. So I always pick at least that many units, both high power and/or strategic value, and try to influence my opponents deployment with them. My deployment, as pictured, had my warp spiders deployed on the right flank, beside the bikes. This was meant to distract him from my intended placement along the left flank. I rolled and got to redeploy 4 units. The only ruse came from the warp spiders, so I moved them where I wanted too and used the other 3 redeployments to slightly modify positioning of some units. Seeing a land raider on the table I got my bright lance wielding guardians in a better position to target it on the first turn. I moved the wave serpent to get better cover from one of the devastator squads and to be closer to the entrenched scouts.
Blood Angels infiltrated 5 scouts with sniper rifles into some ruins, close to my midfield objective. The tech marine had fortified his scouts ruins, giving them a 3+ cover save. Camo cloaks improved this to 2+) The other scout squad outflanked in a rhino. The assault marines began the game in reserve. The techmarine and Librarian started the game in the landraider.
Initiative was not stolen.
Eldar Turn 1
I began the power casting with the warlock with the WJBs, attempting to cast conceal. double 1, perils. Goodbye warlock. I needed him. Moved on to the Spirit Seer. tried to cast conceal on the unit of wraithgaurd he was accompanying. Snake eyes again. Power goes off but at the expense of half the poor ghost helmless SpiritSeers wounds. I was too scared to bother trying to cast a second spell with the Spirit Seer, being content with the 2+ cover that his squad would enjoy after their first round movement in some ruins. The warlock tending the guardians was likewise deterred from attempting to cast. Most of the guardians were out of
LOS, with the only models exposed being the guns and their bubble wrap. And so it came to Eldrad. (Guide, Prescience, Doom, Psycic Shriek) Eldrad attempts to cast guide on the guardians, needing the bright lance to hit that land raider, given that it is the only long range weapon I have that can touch av14. After that its the 6 wraithgaurd and nothing else. I roll snake eyes again. Eldrad expends a warp charge to avoid the wound. Power goes off but jeez, 6 ones in a row for psychic tests. I attempt to cast prescience on the warp spiders and was successful. Phew!
In the movement phase I move the wraithgaurd closer to the objective in the ruins. The wave serpent creeps 6" closer to the scouts in their fortified ruins on my left flank, and into range of the dreadnought. Gaurdians use their move to position so that after firing their weapons they can battle focus out of sight to most threats entirely. Jetbikes, now far more vulnerable to those devastator squads, uses the rocky plateau terrain on the right flank to avoid line of sight to one devastator squad, hoping to jink away the incoming missiles, plasma and lancannon shots from the other devastator squad. Warpspiders use their warp jump ability, gaining nine inches to their move. This brought them within 9" of the scouts.
In the shooting phase I start with the guardians. I pick up my single solitary dice for the bright lance. 'C,moon" I pleaded to the merciless dice gods, Eldrad nearly took a wound to give me the reroll. Not another snake eyes please. I rolled a 6 to hit. Rolled a 6 to get the pen. Rolled a 6 on the damage chart. -1 for target being a tank, +1 for ap2. Kaboom. The resulting explosion killed the tech priest.
That was awesome. The dice god's giveth and taketh away.
The scouts survived the triple hit from the exarch's Spinnaret Rifle and took only two casualties from the 18 death spinner hits. (prescience- yay! 2+ cover-boo!)
The Wave Serpent hit with 2 of the scatter laser shots. I blow the shields, gaining 4 twin linked
str 7 shots. This volley took one
HP off the dreadnought. It had made one cover save.
In the assault phase the warp spiders make it into close combat with the entrenched scouts. No hammer of wrath casualties. The scouts cause no casualties. Warp spiders reduce the squad to two members. The scouts pass their leadership test and fight on.
Blood Angels Turn one:
My friend paused to ponder. He had to suddenly reevaluate his strategy with his land raider and tech priest being destroyed right off the bat, by lowly guardians no less. In the previous game an identically sized and armed guardian squad did substantial damage to him over the course of our last game, shooting and then battle focusing out of sight. He began by casting Prescience on one of the devastator squads. Fearing the wrath of my GDefender's heavy weapon platforms he moved his fragnought further into his backfield and out of the range of the bright lance. This made me smile. My army had no heavy support choices but for something like a dreadnought I didn't need one. Blood Angels only movement consisted of moving his exposed warlord from the smoking crater where his land raider ride once was to the rocks where his 5 man
tac squad held one of the mid field primary objectives.
Blood Angels shooting phase: my smile was erased when his Prescienced devastator squad sent my 8 man, conceal-less WJB squad straight to Slaneesh. The rest of his shooting wasn't too scary. I lost two guardians to a plasma cannon shot to from the other devastator squad. Only the plasma cannon wielder could see them.
In the assault phase the warp spiders killed one more scout and suffered no casualties in return. The warp spiders then successfully left combat thanks to hit and run, which is now stock for warp spiders. They left combat in the direction of the devastator squad camping in cover, leaving the last scout alone in the ruins. My opponent groaned, knowing that the devastator squad and that last scout were probably toast.
Eldar turn two: The Wave Serpent was prescienced and the guardians guided. The Devestators were successfully doomed. The Wraithgaurd benefited from a 2+ armour and cover save thanks to protect and conceal going off successfully. I even risked casting conceal to benefit the few exposed guardians and it went off. Much better round for psychic powers. The Warp spiders moved into position with a warp jump, lining up their sights on the devastators. The Exarch was within 9" and so would get 3 Spinaret rifle shots. The Wave Serpent moves 6" and lines up to shoot on the dreadnought. The guardians shuffle a bit to gain line of sight to the 5
tac marines sitting on an objective. The wraithgaurd moved onto the objective in the ruins. In the shooting phase the warp spiders wiped out the devastator squad. Their gun was good enough without the pseudo rending. Now, 9 Warp Spiders firing
str 6, assault two weapons on a doomed squad produced a lot of ap1. Not that they needed doom but the few ones to wound offered another chance for a 6. Anyways, they all died. The Wave Serpent took another hull point off the dreadnought, leaving it with one. The guardians killed the
tac marine with the missile launcher. In the assault phase the spiders jumped a measly 4 inches away. Many were left out in the open at the end of my turn.
Blood Angels Turn Two: The reserved units failed to come on the board. Prescience was cast on the other devastator squad. In the shooting phase the warp spiders lost 6 models to the concentrated fire of nearly all the Blood Angels. The Warp Spiders pass their morale test and stuck around. Some
tac marines fired some bolter rounds into the remaining warp spiders but failed to kill any.
Eldar turn 3: Spirt Seer fails to cast conceal but successfully casts Protect. So Termigaurds for another turn but only the 4+ cover. Eldrad doomed the
tac squad parked on the objective. Wave Serpent continues it's creep up the left side of the board, staying close to Eldrad, The SpiritSeer and the Wraithgaurd. (I was considering my options. Scoring Scythgaurd in a serpent are a nifty thing to have around. Do I stay close to this objective for another turn or do I flat out the wave serpent, getting a 3+jink and getting the wave serpents int he position to disembark and cleanse the Blood Angel controlled mid field objective?) I decide to stick around for one more turn as I did not know where he would choose to bring on his outflanking Rhino with scouts and jetpack assault marines.
Eldar's combined fire reduced his objective guarding 5 man tactical squad to one model and the wave serpent manage to kill a missile launcher wielder in the remaining devastator squad. The lone
tac marine passed his leadership test.
Blood Angles turn 3: All units in reserve come on. Rhino comes on empty and moves into ruins, close to the wraithgaurd and serpent. The scout squad makes a normal move on and ends up occupying the very same fortified ruins that the previous scout squad were just cleared from. It took a lot of dakka to get through those 2+ cover saves and an assault from 10 spiders to take out 4 of them last time and my warp spider unit was much smaller now. I tried to contain my excitement however, because my wave serpent was in the perfect position to disembark those scythegaurd right beside those fancy fortified ruins.
The jetpack assault marines jump on the the board and into the same cover that the devastator squad previously occupied. The dreadnought moves to the blood angels midfield objective, to support the
tac marines and warlord. The newly arrived squads start the shooting by managing to hit with a krak missile snap shot. I was quite amused at his excitement. He clearly forgot that the wraithgaurd were 2+ armour for this turn. He successfully wounded and expected me to take the wraithgaurd off. Ting! Bwahaha! The rest of the squad likewise failed to do anything to the wraithgaurd. The Rhino fired a storm bolter. Did nothing. The remainder of the devastator squad opened up on the wraithgaurd but between the 2+ armour and 4+ cover save no casualties were suffered. Combined fire from all other units did manage to kill 3 of the 4 remaining warp spiders and the last one fails his leadership test.
Eldar turn 4: This was a good round for me. The Wave Serpent moved 6" and into the perfect position to both unload the scythgaurd and embark the wraithgaurd and spirit seer. All my psychic powers went off and I did just that. The dscythegaurd got off, the wraithgaurd got on, eldrad moves out of coherency with the wraithgaurd during this and moves to join the dscythgaurd. In the shooting phase my guardians continued to kill a marine here and there with their star cannon and bright lance, being out of range of the dreadnought. Wave Serpent moves flat out, ending it's move close to the rocky formation where the marines held an objective. The Dscythe wielding wraithgaurd predictably wiped out the scouts with their fancy cover save in their super ruins. Their job for the rest of the game was to stay in the ruins and control that objective, daring the assault marines to come into the ruins and try it. 5d3 overwatch insta hits. If this happens to kill enough models that the charge fails then they will stand there and get nuked on the elder turn. The wraithgaurd would eventually disembark and try to deny the marine's objective. The plan for the wave serpent would be to flat out again in the next turn to get line breaker in turn 5, gaining a 3+ jink and serpent shield to deal with any last minute firing efforts from the blood angels.
Blood Angels turn 4: Prescience is cast on the devastators. The fragnought finally lumbers into range of something. The Rhino rams the wave serpent.
Lol, it does nothing. The assault marines move beside the dreadnought, in the position to potentially assault the wraithgaurd. The devastators and dreadnauts magna grapple all target the wave serpent with a glancing hit being the only result. The assault marines kill a wraithgaurd with a bolter pistol round,
lol, and suffer a casualty from overwatch in return before successfully making into close combat with the wraithgaurd.
Eldar turn 5: Protect works for the combat locked wraithgaurd. Eldrad dooms the dreadnought (I love that this works on thngs with an
av value now) and guides the guardians. The wave serpent moves 6" and into position to either open up on the dreadnought, which had to die this turn, or flat out for the line breaker
vp. The guardians take the last hull point from the dreadnought.
Blood Angels turn 5: Prescience was cast. Not much movement. The 4 reaming devastators don't devastate much. The wraithgaurd with spirit seer kill one of the marines with no casualties suffered in return. The marines pass their morale test.
Variable game length roll made. Game ends.
Marines control 2 objectives, Eldar control two objective. First blood to Eldar.
Eldar 7, Blood Angels 6
Some thoughts:
A good game. Tough to pick a game star for the eldar. Other then the early loss of the bikes everything else worked very well. With one more turn it is possible that I could have easily gotten line breaker and possibly deny the marines midfield objective as well. My objectives were 100% secure with nothing that could threaten them.
The scythe torched a scoring unit that was previously enjoying 2+ cover and controlled an objective. Pretty good. The wraithgaurd soaked up a lot of fire and did well overall. The Wave Serpent is awesome. That gun that sometimes gets used as a shield is fantastic, especially with the requisite laser lock.
Gaurdians!! bs4+cheaper starcannons and bright lances+battle focus= ass kicking all battle long again! I think they should get game ball after blowing the land raider and tech priest away on the first attempted firing of a weapon by the elder in the battle.
Doom is such an awesome power. Still the very best power we have. It works on vehicles now and all distort, monofilament and bladestorm weapons have special rules associated with the to wound roll. My entire force had weapons that benefited from doom.
