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Mission – Big Guns Never Tire/Purge the Alien

Army Lists

CSM/Daemons

HQ

Lord - khorne, bike, axe blind rage, sigil corruption
Sorcerer - lvl 3, terminator, familiar (terrify, invisibility, hallucinations)

Troops

10 CSM 2x melta, rhino, dirge caster
8 CSM melta, combi melta, rhino, dirge caster

Heavy

2 Obliterators, Nurgle
2 Obliterators, Nurgle

Fast Attack

Heldrake
Heldrake
5 bikers 2x melta, asp champ melta bombs

Allies

Bloodthirster – (armorbane, fleshbane, rift bringer)

10 Plague Bearers

Army Lists

Eldar

HQ

Exarch – reaper launcher, fire saber
Farseer - (invisibility,guide)

Troops

10 guardians – warlock (conceal/reveal)
Wave serpent – scatter laser, shuricannon

5 rangers
3 jetbikes – shuricannon
6 jetbikes – 2x shuricannon

Heavy

Wraithknight
3x warwalkers – scatter laser, star cannon
3x Support battery – shadow weaver

Fast Attack

Crimson Hunter
Crimson Hunter Exarch
6 warp spiders

Fortifications

Landing Platform


Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Night Fighting: Yes

Objectives: CSM 3 ; Eldar 2

First Turn: Eldar

Pregame Analysis: Well this is going to be a grind of a game. I have an assault based army that needs to get into combat by turn 2 preferably. To do this, all my units need to move up together. This seems like a bad plan in light of the fact that the Eldar have way more firepower than me. Plus the secondary mission is kill points. My big advantage are the heldrakes. However, even when they arrive they won't be able to do anything for the first turn. This will give the crimson hunters the opportunity to take them down as the hunters are excellent at knocking out other flyers. What I have working in my favor is that I got to place objectives first. I placed two on my side of the board and one centrally, to entice the Eldar to come forward. The Eldar put one objective in the center as well, trying to lure me to step into range of their guns. That's the other thing in my favor, Eldar have great mid-range firepower, but if I can stay out of 36 inches I might survive long enough to take the objectives. I must suppress my urge to charge forward and try to eke out a win at the end.

Setup



The Eldar deploy their landing platform centrally at the back edge of their deployment zone. All their units are on the platform except for the wave serpent with guardians hiding in a corner and the warp spiders behind the platform. The two flyers are in reserve alongside the two units of jetbikes.
I put everything in the back left corner except for the lord and his bikers that are on the right side. The sorcerer joins a unit of obliterators on the board. The plague bearers are in reserve along with the two heldrakes and a unit of obliterators.

Turn 1



The Eldar shuffle around with the warp spiders jumping forward and then running around. Nothing is in range so it’s a quick first turn.

At the bottom of 1 I drive the bikers over to the center while the two rhinos drive forward. I can’t see anything due to night fight so no shooting for me either. Instead of making sure that the Thirster is hidden from view and can’t be shot, I cast invisibility on him.

Turn 2



All the Eldar reserves show up except for the crimson hunter exarch. The wraithknight decides to mix it up and advances on me. The wave serpent drives out from behind a building.

The knight and the serpent combine to explode one rhino for First Blood. The crimson hunter puts down an obliterator and sticks a wound on another one. That’s the unit I probably should have made invisible. To top things off, the farseer knocks off a biker from 72 inches away with his magic AP3 rifle.

Bottom of 2 I only get the plague bearers from reserve. They take up position next to the objective closest to the board edge. So much for my plan to send the drakes, thirster and be aggressive with my reserved obliterators. In my movement a unit of marines gets out from their wrecked transport and move forward. The other rhino drives up farther. Oblit and sorcerer do a better job hiding after casting invisibility on themselves. The lord with bikers drive over to the left side. My shooting consists of knocking a wound from the wraith knight with a lascannon.

Turn 3



The crimson hunter exarch comes in and screams up the left side of the board. The wraith knight moves over to the right some more.

The shooting this turn wrecks another rhino while the biker squad gets reduced to the lord, aspiring champion and a melta gun. The survivors of the newest rhino wreck pile towards the building behind which my sorcerer is hiding. There’s an objective there on the other side.



In my turn I get the obliterators and one heldrake in. After spending a lot of time thinking, I decide to send my obliterators toward the middle (they’re obscured by the drake in the picture). The heldrake goes in front of the building with the sorcerer. The bloodthirster is turned invisible and flies into the ruins in the middle. The lord abandons the bikers and joins a unit of marines for his fearlessness.

My shooting phase includes getting two hits with assault cannons on the crimson exarch. That forced the flyer to jink although the shots did not even scratch the paint after that. However, the guy will now be snap shooting. So perhaps there is a small chance my drake will live.

Turn 4



The Eldar shuffle around, but don’t need to do much. The jinking exarch is sent after my thirster in the middle. The warlock with the guardians inside the serpent explodes his own head due to perils.

The shooting phase starts and this is where the game starts to turn thanks to amazing dice. The crimson hunter rolls 4 hits and 4 pens on the drake. The thirster is shot by the walkers, wraith knight and wave serpent….The drake saves 3 of the pens and ends up vector locked. The thirster loses 2 wounds but remains flying. Both units will actually get to do something.



I get the second drake in and it goes up the right side. I cast invisibility on the thirster again as he’s still barely in range. Then I shuffle the oblits in the middle of the board into some terrain. The vector locked drake and the thirster both vector strike the crimson hunter exarch and knock him out of the sky.

The shooting is where my hot dice swing the game completely. The oblits in the middle fire lascannons at the wave serpent and despite having a 3+ cover save thanks to terrain and holo fields it is penned and explodes. Half the guardians die. The lone oblit with the sorcerer has nothing else to shoot at and fires at the other crimson hunter. I hit. The pen goes through and cannot be saved. The hunter explodes. Wow, I will now have to take my usually awful dice rolls without complaining for a while. The dice gods smiled on me that turn. I now have two dragons in my opponents deployment zone with him lacking all his anti-air assets.

Turn 5



The Eldar now have to go for objectives. The big unit of jetbikes comes out from behind the landing pad and prepares to take down the thirster. The other bike unit gets ready to grab the center objective with turbo boosting. The wraith knight jumps on top of the bridge.
In the shooting phase the Eldar unload everything into the thirster. After being shot by warp spiders, war walkers, jet bikes and guided pathfinders I lose a single wound from the thirster and he remains in the air. The wraith knight shoots the center obliterators. He manages one hit and that is saved by an invulnerable save. The dice truly smiled upon me for this game.

At this point as I am about to kill his jetbikes in the center, charge his big jetbike squad with the thirster and I hold 3 objectives. There is almost no chance for my opponent to win the game. He is also faced with a dangerous wife test and so we decide to call the game.

Chaos takes primary (3-2 objectives) and secondary (3-2 kill points) missions.

Conclusions: Well that ended up being a lot less close than I thought. I can’t really say that’s because of my brilliant strategy. The dice really turned on my opponent turn 4. My plan to hide and get shot while hopping that I can force his jetbikes off the objectives at the end of the game might have worked, but the dice made it a lot easier. I think my opponent could have played more aggressively with his war walkers, but otherwise being far away from me and having a giant advantage in scoring mobility were really in his favor.

Games like this a good reminder that this is still a dice game and even the best laid plans can be buried under a mountain on 6s.

Awesome list and powers you rolled up! Great battle, I love the DWT (dangerous wife test).

Awesome breakdown. Enjoyed hearing about your battle. Some great ideas put to the test.

Thanks guys.

Assault based armies are certainly more difficult to pull off and might not win big tournaments, but they can still work. You just need a lot of speed to get into the combat. The army has to be geared for it too. Presenting multiple threats at once is important to make target priority a little more difficult for your opponent.

Of course none of that was show cased in this battle. One Blood Thirster withstood 2 turns of being shot by an entire army while I got some lucky lascannon hits.

Wow, awesome bat rep, nice table and armies, well done!

 Reecius wrote:
Wow, awesome bat rep, nice table and armies, well done!

Thanks for the kind words.

I forgot to credit the gaming store. But we played at Card Kingdom in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle. They have some fantastic tables with a growing pile of terrain. With our proximity to Privateer Press most of the players at the store are into War Machine, but a few of us are still rocking 40k. Perhaps there will be a greater influx of 40k players now that the "Seattle" Battle Bunker is being converted to a smaller store.

How did you find the Shadow Weavers Boga?
Used to run them quite a bit in 5th (2x3 mostly) and really liked them especially with a cheeky guide on them. However I think the Eldar 6th heavy slot is very very overcrowded.
How would you rate them in 6th / do they cut it?

Nice table/terrain by the way

 Ratius wrote:
How did you find the Shadow Weavers Boga?
Used to run them quite a bit in 5th (2x3 mostly) and really liked them especially with a cheeky guide on them. However I think the Eldar 6th heavy slot is very very overcrowded.
How would you rate them in 6th / do they cut it?

Nice table/terrain by the way

The shadow weavers didn't get to do too much this game. They were out of range most of the game. I don't think I noted it in the report, but they did get a few hits on exposed marine squads. They probably killed off 7 marines or so and caused a pin on one squad.

So I think they have their uses, but you're right, the Heavy slots are pretty crowded right now for Eldar. But you could do worse than t7 models that could have 2+ armor save with correct Farseer roll or have 2+ or 3+ cover save if you take Conceal. So tough, survivable, s7 against tanks and hitting side armor. That's pretty good for 90 points.

You had me at :LEGO LANDING PLATFORM!!!!



truly epic

Yeah the landing platform is pretty nice. My friend seaphoenix is building it out of Legos. I think he's aiming to debut it at the Rose City rumble in September.

Great report! Always like seeing a Iron Warriors themed army as I'm building one myself . What was your loadout on the biker squad as I don't see them listed in the first post?

Noc

Iron within and such. I always liked their fluff and I've really latched on to the old Index Astartes article about them being great at assault as well as shooting.

Anyway, I edited the first post with the bikers as I totally forgot about them.

5 bikers 2x melta melta bombs

At 1750 I run 6 and give the aspiring champ lightning claw. To fit the sorcerer I cut a few extras.