Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi

Played a game at the weekend against one of my buddies who is a good eldar player. And I can tell you, it was a real eye opener ahead of a couple of big tournaments I have coming up!

Mission: Crusade
Deployment: Dawn of War
5 Objectives, placed liberally around the board.
Night Fighting: Yes
Eldar Warlord trait: Can't remember
FSE warlord trait: Strategic Genius (+1 seize, reroll reserves)
First turn: Farsight Enclaves

Commander Nightfury's Assault Force

Commander, XV84, EWO, drone controller, missile pod, Mirrorcodex, two marker drones 207 pts

3 dual plasma XV8, EWO 174 pts
2 dual plasma XV8, EWO 116pts
2 dual flamer XV8 66 pts
1 dual fusion blaster XV8 53 pts
1 dual fusion blaster XV8 53 pts
1 twin-linked fusion blaster, 1 flamer 48 pts

4 marker drones 56 pts

Sky ray, BSF 116 pts

Firebase support cadre

3 missilesides, EWO 210 pts
3 missilesides, EWO 210 pts

Iontide, EWO 190 pts

1499 pts

opponents force. Mega Multisource for headache inducing nonsense.

Non-descript Eldar blue craftworld

Aspect Host (+ 1 Ballistic skill)
5 Warp Spiders
5 Warp Spiders
5 Warp Spiders (all units have exarch)

Aspect Host (+1 BS)
5 Warp Spiders
5 Warp Spiders (both units with exarch)
3 Dark Reapers, Exarch with Tempest launcher (warlord), Wave Serpent

Dark Eldar CAD

Lhaeman
Lhaeman
5 Warriors
5 Wyches, Impaler

Fortification: Imperial Bunker with comms relay

Space Marines
Flyer formation?

Stormraven, multimelta, assault cannon
Stormtalon, skyhammer assault cannon
Stormtalon, skyhammer assault cannon

Culexus Assasin

Opponent sets up first, but lets me go first. Apparently this is how the GT we are going to allows it to happen.

The Dark Reapers go in the bunker on top of an objective in the far right, with wyches behind it and a Lhaeman on the comms relay. Warp spiders spread liberally across board close enough to terrain to jump behind it. Space Marine flyers, culexus in the Raven and the Wave Serpent with the DE warriors are in reserve.

My set up, and I put a unit of broadsides in the open across from the bunker, with Riptide behind and the skyray to the right of them. Commander Nightfury is close by with his marker drones, with 2 man plasma suit squad on his flank. Second squad of broadsides in a big ruin to the left of my deployment zone with 3 man plasma suits backing them up. Flamer suits, and all YOLO fusion suits in reserve.

Opponent doesn't seize and its game on.

Turn 1

Tau

I markerlight up the bunker big time with Commander's squad, whilst plasma suits advance towards Eldar/DE units up the right flank but behind terrain. Not much else moves. Riptide Nova charges his Ion Accelerator, and tries to hit Wyches + bunker. Damages bunker, doing 5 S6 ap- hits on the Dark Reapers inside, killing both of the chumps but not exarch. Wyches pass their 3+ save for being obscured by a fortification. Left hand side units of Broadsides open up on a unit of spiders, who flickerjump back out of LOS of my high yield missiles, but not the SMS so I kill two of them. Thats about it.

Eldar/DE

Opponent moves some warp spiders around, mostly keeping out of LOS. Shooting, and he fires the Tempest launcher - which I didn't know was barrage - at my commander's unit, and kills two marker drones. That about finishes it.


Turn 2

My reserves all arrive. I deep strike one of the solo fusion suits into terrain next to the bunker, and one to the right of it. Flamer suits arrive right in front of it, on the odd chance that I don't destroy it I can flame the exarch to death. Solo fuison/flamer suit lands next to a bunch of two units of warp spiders hiding behind a big ruin to my left that none of my other units could see. Riptide Novas shield, and put him out in front to try and lure some spiders closer to my broadsides.

Shooting, and I light up the bunker with the marker unit. First fusion suit gets two hits, and destroys the bunker, collapsing upon and killing the Exarch (FIRST BLOOD + WARLORD). Skyray kills 3 of 5 wyches with SMS, and they run off the board. Riptide kills comms relay Lhaeman with a long range Ion accelerator shot.

Now we have a travesty.

The UKGT has ruled that Warp SPiders can flickerjump EACH TIME they are targetted, even in a single turn. One unit of Spiders, targetted by the solo fusion/flamer suit jumps away (i killed two of the unit behind, as technically they were not primary target so could not jump). I then target them with a unit of broadsides, they jump out of LOS and i kill only 1 with SMS. I try to get plasma shots against them but they roll an 11 on the dice and move out of LOS again, and I try the 2nd unit of broadsides at them, but do no more damage. It should be noted, my opponent was exceptionally lucky with both the distance he rolled for each jump and his saves, but thats four units shooting at 5 warp spiders and killing only 1 model. GRrrrr....

Eldar turn 2

Wave serpent arrives. Other Lhamean arrives. Space Marine planes fail to arrive.
I intercept the Serpent with the Ion accelerator but it scatters off the board. I then intercept it with one unit of broadsides HYMP and strip two hull points and force it to jink. DE Warriors disembarked.

He basically jumps around with warp spiders, killing one of my fusion suits and one of the flamer suits, who run. Then kills the last flamer suit by running it down as it flees, passing all the saves with wall of flame. Wounds a broadisde with the Spiders too.

Tau Turn 3

Two man plasma suits try to advance up the right flank, I take a wound from jumping into terrain. Solo dual fusion suit moves towards wave serpent. 3 man plasma suits try and fail to pin down a unit of spiders, jumping away out of LOS. Riptide Nova's his jump to move towards an objective. I mismeasure my Skyray's SMS to the DE warriors, and therefore I am out of range come my shooting phase. Solo fuison suit misses wave serpent in shooting, but assaults it and kills it in melee. Very satisfying. I think I kill about 3-4 warp spiders from broadside SMS, but no full units.

Eldar turn 3

Planes arrive carrying culexus. One stormtalon is immediately intercepted and destroyed by broadsides. The other jinks but takes no damage, and the stormraven has to jink and loses a hull point. Stormraven snapshots and kills the solo fusion suits with the multi-melta, and my solo fusion/flamer suit is killed by warp spiders. Two spider units combine to shoot riptide but only loses one wound.

Tau turn 4

I try to move my remaning stuff towards objectives, riptide sits on one and commander sits on another, with plasma suits moving towards one in the far corner held by a Lhaeman. Skyray kills the Stormraven, and turns out the Culexus doesnt have a parachute as he dies in the crash. Broadsides murder DE warriors in hail of missiles. I manage to kill a unit of warp spiders with plasma suits shooting and believe it or not, in melee. Fail to kill the 2nd stormtalon though.

Eldar Turn 4

Big mistake means I lose my commnader's unit to an assault (WARLORD) from two warp spider units - I was sitting 6.5" away from a broadside unit I would have gotten supporting fire from. Ah well. Eldar Set up to try and contest objectives, as it actually looks like I may even win as I have more stuff left.

Tau turn 5

I get my riptide on an objective, kill the lhaeman on far objective but don't manage to get plasma suits close enough to score the far objective. Two units of tank hunting preferred enemy marines broadsides fail to kill a Stormtalon again.

Eldar turn 5

Contests my riptide objective with one warp spider. Holds one objective with 3 warp spiders and contests my objective I hold with my skyray with his Stormtalon. Roll for it.... and its a 1, the game ends!!

Victory for Eldar/DE.

Summary - Warp Spiders are nigh impossible to wipe out if there are enough of them. I think my army has a fair bit of shooting, but they can jump behind walls, hide and be a pain in the backside.

Though not all players are as good as my buddy, so we'll see at the tournaments. I would have tabled him had we went to turn 6 (maybe, bloody spiders!)

I think my mass interceptor worked well. Need to not move away from supporting fire though

Thanks for reading

He who sets up always chooses who goes first. That's actually the rules...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good report btw! Pics would be nice next time!

Warp spiders are broken in competitive play, especially if there is ample terrain. That is why so many players run them in UK GT's as well several tournaments here in the US (i.e. Nova). I much prefer the ITC rules, which limits the spiders to just 1 jump a turn.

And 5 detachments at 1500? Yeesh. That is just terrible.

The best way to eliminate Warp Spyders is run them down and kill them in melee which is not easy either but more doable than simply shooting them.

Didn't realise the UKGT is playing the 1st turn roll straight out of the book - will factor that in. Which heat are you guys heading to?

Thanks for reading folks.

Yeah Icelord - fail on my part. Went and read the rulebook after your post! Just that as I live quite rural and only get to play at events I am used to tournaments altering the start set up. Feel sheepish now.. Took some pics, but the lighting has turned out really poor so they are not so good.

Jy2 - I agree, previously the UKGT has been a great event, but with multisource nonsense and mega codex creep, I have a sinking feeling that my poor Tau are gonna get stomped (at 1500, I feel that I'd sacrifice too many of the decent Tau units if I put allies in, and I like playing a pure army) . Don't get me wrong, looking forward to the event but a small bit of source restriction may have been better.

I shall seek triumph and glory down on the noob tables!

Dozer Blades - Yeah, i must have forgotten what turns it happened, but there were a couple of times I assaulted the spiders with crisis suits. Which is actually not too bad, with their decent number of attacks and high strength value you can put the hurt on some Eldar units. But unfortunately I would obviously have to question my own gaming strategy if I start chasing Eldar about the board with Tau trying to get them in melee.

NickAtkins - Think its Heat 2, the Mansfield one. You going?

Yeah i'm heading to the one at Sanctuary Gaming in Sutton in Ashfield on the 17th. Still haven't really nailed a list down that i want to take, my good buddy is taking some sort of monstrosity of a list including a Typhon, drop cents and Sicaran battle tanks (pretty much planning on there being a lot of cover dependent deathstars) i considered my "standard" battle company but iirc there are 2 missions including KP's in the pack.