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Tough spot to be in...

If I were the Kroot player, my next turn is going to be concentrating everything on taking down a skimmer (specifically, the Falcon). I don't think making a break for the safety of the ruins is worth it, since they'd have to make a high difficult terrain roll to get there. The other two squads are pretty much out of the fight - just keep them in good, hidden positions to grab/contest the quads that they're in.

The eldar player, on the other hand, has some choices depending on what happens in the next Kroot phase. If able, I'd probably mount up the Warlock/Guardian and keep out of assault range - tossing what fire I could muster at the big hound/Kroot unit. Then, next turn I'd hop the Falcon & flame squad next to them to pray on bringing them under 1/2. The Hawks claim the quad that the Falcon doesn't.

Wow. This turn is going to suck for the kroot player. Leaving the hawks unengaged allowed them to get some breathing room from any threatening kroot units. Consolidating his forces was a very smart move on the part of the eldar player.


If the eldar player can seize upon it... this could be a bona fide momentum shift in the game. We just saw in the last eldar turn what can happen with all the firepower still left. They wiped out a 9 strong unit in 1 shooting phase.


The kroot player NEEDS to be smart now. What are his strengths right now? Numbers and superiority in CC (his strengths all game long). The problem is that there's too much separation between the eldar units and his units... which plays into the eldar strengths (ranged fire and mobility). Smart money, I'd say, is to move the hound unit, and master shaper, to consolidate with the top right carnivore unit, getting closer to the center ruins with both. He needs to bait the eldar player into getting closer. Putting one big juicy clump of kroot, partially in the open, makes for a very tempting target for the flamer storm guardians (transported into position by a falcon, of course).

A more direct (and far riskier) move would be to advance the hound unit into rapid fire range, and rapid fire the hawks. Also, send the master shaper after the storm guardians. As he is equiped with a meltagun, he can shoot AND charge them. He might get lucky and get rid of that pesky flamer template. With this course of action, he might need to bring the upper right carnivore squad around/over the hill and get closer to support this last ditch attack. Then again, if the last ditch attack is successful, moving them into cover (preferably trees) to protect them from the vehicle borne fire would be a good plan too.

As an aside... placing the comma carnivores in the lower right ruins (and leaving them there) might bite the kroot player in the butt. He really might need those extra bodies here in the end game... but they're so far out of position, they really can't do ANYTHING now. If they move out of the ruins, they could fall prey to what just happened to the lower left squad. Wiped out in 1 shooting phase.




Wow. So, my prediction for the game, from this present situation. Kroot win, but it won't be pretty. I cannot stress enough how big a flub that was to do NOTHING to the hawks last turn. It all hinges on how the kroot player chooses to deal with the hawks. There is an outside chance that the kroot player suddenly loses his nerve, and goes pure defensive (as he showed shades of, playing it safe with the upper right carnivore squad). In that case... eldar win, as they still have respectable firepower, lots of room to maneuver, and his army now consists of insanely mobile units.

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>[b]TURN FIVE

> 

The Master Shaper hissed softly to the Kroot Hound Shaper, giving him a quick order, then prepared himself for the sacrifice he was about to make. With a somber look on his face, he took to the air, landing deftly among the smoke and flames of the Wave Serpent wreckage. Heeding his order, the Kroot Hounds made a break for the relative safety of the ruins.

Knowing it would probably be the last thing he did on the battlefield that day, the Master Shaper took careful aim at the Wave Serpent. His melta blast sliced through the rear thrusters, pitching the vehicle forward and immobilizing it. The Wave Serpent crashed to the ground with a massive boom that resonated across the field.

 

 

The Storm Guardians piled into the back of the Falcon, which raced off around all of the vehicle wreckage. The Master Shaper was out in the open and vulnerable, as he knew he would be. The remnants of the Eldar army riddled him with laser blasts, and he fell from the sky in a crumpled heap, his work on the field done for the day.

 

 

[b]TURN SIX

> 

The fight was all but over. The two armies had fought to a stalemate, and neither seemed to have the upper hand. The Kroot Hound unit spread out on the field, preparing for incoming flamer fire, and stood their ground. They unleashed as much Kroot Rifle fire as they could into the Swooping Hawks, dropping two of the Eldar. The last three just barely held it together, and steeled themselves for the end game.

 

 

The Storm Guardians unloaded from the Falcon, and the Eldar stragglers took aim at the Kroot Hound unit. When the smoke had cleared, six of the Kroot had fallen, but the Shaper held the rest together. The Swooping Hawks rushed into the ruins, just barely making it to the Kroot lines. The Exarch quickly downed three of the Kroot, which was all that could be reached, but the Kroot Shaper kept the rest of the unit in place. The  curtain drew closed on the theater of war, and both armies withdrew to tend to their wounded.

 

[b]END GAME

So, totalling up the score in this Seek and Destroy mission:

Farseer: ELIMINATED (61)
5 Howling Banshees + 1 Exarch: ELIMINATED (125)
5 Striking Scorpions + 1 Exarch: ELIMINATED (123)
Wave Serpent w/- Twinlinked Brightlances: ELIMINATED (125)
5 Fire Dragons + 1 Exarch: ELIMINATED (131)
Wave Serpent w/- Twinlinked Brightlances: ELIMINATED(125)
3 Rangers: ELIMINATED (57)
5 Storm Guardians + 1 Warlock: HALF ELIMINATED (51)
Wave Serpent w/- Twinlinked Brightlances: ELIMINATED (125)
4 Swooping Hawks + 1 Exarch: SAFE (-)
Vyper w/- Scatter Laser: ELIMINATED (55)
Vyper w/- Scatter Laser: HALF ELIMINATED (28)
4 Dark Reapers + 1 Exarch: ELIMINATED (213)
3 Shadow Weavers: ELIMINATED (135)
Falcon w/- Starcannon: SAFE(-)

Total Enemy Eliminations: 1334
Scoring Unit Bonuses: 347 (Swooping Hawks+Falcon)
Total Score: 1681

Shaper Council: ELIMINAETD (270)
16 Kroot Kindred: ELIMINATED (175)
16 Kroot Kindred: SAFE (-)
12 Kroot Kindred: SAFE (-)
12 Kroot Kindred: ELIMINATED (143)
12 Kroot Kindred: ELIMINATED (143)
Vulture Kindred: ELIMINATED (166)
Kroot Hound Kindred: HALF ELIMINATED (198)
Hunter Kindred: ELIMINAETD (103)

Total Enemy Eliminations: 1425
Scoring Unit Bonuses: 318 (16 Kroot+12 Kroot)
Total Score: 1743

1) 1850 points.
2) I do not play Dakkahammer, and I have no qualms about telling you your list is too cheesy to participate. If you want to play, be prepared to keep your army reasonable.
3) You must have Photoshop, and know how to use it. This is really important.
4) You must have time to check your email at least three times a day.

 

Score Difference: 62 </PRE><PRE style=; free: p> </PRE>

Man, the posting interface on Dakka sucks.

Sorry that last post came out so crazy...I assure you, it was not my fault...

Final Analysis... just as I predicted, kroot playing it "safe" cost him the game.


The eldar player really couldn't have done much different in this game (aside from getting the first turn). The whole game, right up until the kroot player started playing it safe, the kroot had the initiative, and the eldar player was forced to react to the moves the kroot made.

When the kroot general VOLUNTARILLY relinquished the initiative, the eldar player made a good showing of it to pull off a draw.



Final thoughts? Remember the old saying "Fortune favors the bold." The Kroot general snatched a draw from the jaws of victory when he started playing conservative.

Can't wait to disect the next one.

There are some things I think the Eldar player could have done differently in hindsight, but I'm not sure he had any idea what he was playing against or what their capabilities were. For example, in the deployment phase, the eldar player could have used his skimmers and/or scorpions to form the front line, which would have prevented the infiltrating kroot from getting a 1st turn charge off against the reapers. The kroot had one unit of anti-armor in the whole army and an eviscerator in each unit. That's great, but not so great against skimmers. Using them to shield the reapers would have gone a long way to stalling the kroot assault. With such huge range on the reapers and doom weavers, I don't think there was any reason to deploy them so far forward and in the open. Then again, the kroot force has the capability to infiltrate super close, so it's definately an odd exception to the norm.

I think turn 3, the eldar player could have moved his hawks south west instead of *not moving them*, and could have used a 24" move to pull the vyper out as well. This would have allowed him to shoot up the squad further south near the falcon all by itself, and take them out of range of the east kroot and kroot hounds as well. The eldar player focused way to much on getting those two flamers to survive, and get them back into a transport. In essence the vyper was sacrificed to allow this to happen. Bad trade! They didn't win him the game and caused minimal casualties as the kroot player saw that coming from a mile away, and simply spread out the last turn. There was way too much resource wise that was spent trying to save those fire dragons and the remaining warlock and flamer guardian. If they had simply been abandoned to take out the southwest kroot unit, that would have gone a long way to getting into the eldars strengths, range and speed.

I think re-deploying everything he could to the southwest would have been the winning move on turn 3 as that would have taken the northeast kroot out of the fight essentially, and allowed him to focus everything on the kroot hound unit, or the unit to the east with long range guns and fast movement if the northern kroot and northeastern kroot don't pursue.

First of all, I should definitely give big props to xtapl not only for the idea of this game, but for performing so well in it. One of those games that is a pleasure to play - no arguments, no rules quibbles, just hard tactics on both sides. I didn't want to make any comments while the report was still unfolding, but now that it's done, I want to give my perspective on a few things.

Army Selection: While I wouldn't have any problems playing Eldar at a tournament, I haven't actually done so yet. Normally, I play Eldar with fewer, larger squads, and I wanted to experiment with more numerous small squads. Large squads are fine, but sometimes they get smeared without doing anything, and I get a little annoyed that I wasted so many points without anything to show for it. In this case, I did not deliberately pick an army that was anti-horde or anti-marine; there are enough elements of both to make the army viable in those regards.

Much has been said on the choice of things like Reapers and Shadow Weavers. I feel that one of the weaknesses of Eldar is that most of their units lack the ability to wipe out or cripple entire enemy units in a turn. There are many marine units that can do this, but very few Eldar units can, particularly at range. Falcons are fine, but realistically the only units they're going to cripple in one turn of firing are small elite ones like Terminator squads - they're not going to hit enough to damage other units significantly. Neither are starcannon Vypers, Wraithlords, or Guardian squads (the logistics of getting a large enough Guardian squad within 12" to shoot a lot doesn't, in my mind, make them a ranged squad any more). About the only ranged choices the Eldar have that can remove whole enemy units in one round are 5-man Reaper squads, and Support Weapon batteries. (3-Walker squadrons can also, but they're the least survivable option.) It is not strictly necessary that an army have these threatening units, but the threat of their fire forces the opponent to react to them in some fashion, either to attempt to take them out fast, or to plan their movement so as to avoid their fire. That threat, and the reactions it provokes, is tactically important, I feel, since it constrains your enemy in some fashion and allows you to take advantage of the reactions. Fortuned Reapers (the Farseer, of course, had Fortune) in 4+ cover are extremely resilient to return fire, but, as we saw, are bad when charged first turn. Live and learn. The Shadow Weavers are there because barrage weapons under 4th Ed can be devastating, and even with the small template, linked barrages can cover a large number of people. Shadow Weavers don't hurt marines a lot, this is true, but the squad is quite cheap, and enough S6 hits will hurt anyone - D-cannons just have too short a range to really be effective in many cases. Normally, however, I would use one of these or the other, putting something like another Falcon or a Wraithlord in the other Heavy slot. I put both in for experimental purposes here, and I think I would do it again - the first turn charge isn't something you'll face every game, and I feel that both units are effective for that ranged threat they present.

Other than those, the 6-man Aspect squads were there mostly for me to see how smaller Aspect squads perform. Scorpions are, I think, a no-no, since they really need the numbers to be good for anything. Fire Dragons never seem to perform for me, no matter what - on paper they should be devastating, but for some reason they always manage to only get 1 or 2 hits out of a squad of 6 or more, even with BS4 S6. It's very annoying. Hawks are not extremely useful, though their guns are fine against a T3 opponent, but the squad essentially amounts to a 150 pt Exarch, and he can be very effective. The Web of Skulls underperformed at range in this game (lots of 1s on the first or second shot), but normally it's good for several kills at range, and in close I find that he regularly rolls 8-14 hits per round. With I6 and plasma grenades, this makes him effective against virtually any troop type, and the only real problem with Hawks is their fragility and comparative expense, but that's an issue with so many Eldar units. One unit that I was pleasantly surprised by were the Banshees. While a 6-man banshee squad seems to be not as good as a larger one, they accounted for 15 or so of the Hounds, and more importantly, the Exarch was instrumental in keeping the combat going for a full extra turn. While I was very fortunate not to have the reapers wiped out first turn, the banshee combat played out to plan - what is not immediately obvious is that every round, the Exarch's acrobatics meant that a good percentage of the Hounds did not get to strike, as she moved and left them with no opponent in range. I may consider using a small Banshee squad like this again - their first charge is still powerful, they fit in a Falcon, and the Exarch has a good tarpit ability against large mobs that can make them a good defensive unit.

Deployment and Tactics: As noted, there were a few errors on both sides in this game. The Shaper Council was a gift, as xtapl has already said. About the only things I might have done differently for deployment is move the Scorpions. For some reason, I thought denying them that wood on initial deployment was important, and it wasn't really. Instead I just left a unit out to dry unsupported. I wouldn't have changed the Reaper deployment - they weren't at the front of the deployment zone, and they were 4" back in ruins, with vehicles in front of them to both sides. Against anything except an army that infiltrates to 12" away and gets to roll 2 dice for Fleet and ignores woods as terrain and gets first turn, they were probably good. Getting first turn would have been a dramatic change, but it wasn't going to happen, not with the Kroot reroll for first turn, so there's no point in debating that. However, a 50/50 roll that would have made a dramatic difference was the roll for first infiltrator deployment. Had I won, the rangers would have gone pretty much exactly where the Kroot Hounds were. I think that would have prevented the Hounds being close enough to the reapers to get a first turn charge from any angle. Even though I didn't win that roll, the Rangers should have been on the tower where the Hunter Kindred were. I can't really remember why I put them there - I think I wanted to prevent him loading that flank with everything, but they really should have been on that tower instead.

Other than that, the tactics in-game played out more or less as they should have. There was a fair share of good fortune on both sides, so dice were not a factor. I didn't hide the Hawks and so on on turn 3 because I still had the upper hand in firepower at that point, even with the Reapers and Shadow Weavers gone. Instead, I pushed forward a Serpent, a Vyper and the Hawks to fire at the two northeastern units, hoping to wipe out or damage them significantly for the next turn of fire. One was wiped out, and the other would probably have been brought below half the next round of shooting, but then the Kroot had a very good melee round attacking the skimmers (something like 14 6s out of 35 rolls) and I lost the fire superiority, forcing me to back up and let the second northeastern unit go.

All in all though, it was a very nice game, and I look forward to getting another shot. Thanks all for the comments - very informative.

I seem to have the opposite luck with the dragons. I tend to keep a 5-6 man squad in a falcon and anything that gets too close gets cooked by the fusion guns. I only focus on big targets with them though where even if they get blown up, they earn their points first, then maybe survive to get back in and hit something else. However your opponent was quite unique in the fact that in essence, there were very few big targets. While they are not as awesome against kroot as say, dire avengers, I think they are a must have in an all comer list because of the prevalence of either high toughness units, vehicles, or both in many armies. While the Eldar are blessed with ultra effective specialists, it's also somewhat of a curse against a unique army like the Kroot. Still, if they could have opened fire on that shaper council the instant death factor would have been extremely valuable. Naturally the Kroot player prevented that from happening

Still, if they could have opened fire on that shaper council the instant death factor would have been extremely valuable.

See, that's the thing. They did open fire on the Shaper council, even after it had been knocked down to two guys. They got two wounds, and killed one. Then, even 5 to 1 and getting the charge, they couldn't kill the Master Shaper in 3 rounds of close combat. Fire Dragons really should be awesome, but I find them to be constant underperformers.

If you find the dragons always underperforming, you could always try out a unit of warp spiders. They are fast enough to operate well without a transport, and perform pretty well against light vehicles, vehicles w/ rear armor 10, and all forms of light infantry. While not the best unit out there for dealing with MEQ, they can still do enough wounds to cause a marine player a headache if not dealt with at some point. An exarch with withdraw also gives you the chance to get out of combat should someone try and tie you up from shooting.

For the points cost of a WS with 5 dragons, you can get a unit of 7 spiders + an exarch and save a few points as well. Not sure if they would be a fit for the overall metagame of your list as it is a take all comers arrmy, but I find them fun to play around with, and a rather cost effective solution against my marine opponents landspeeders