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2016/03/29 21:46:25
Subject: 1500Pts Highlander tournament practice Eldar vs. Tau (All turns complete)
Chickidity check yourselves, Top Yop coming in with another fresh clean battle report straight from tha' underground.
The slobs are currently practising for various upcoming UKRTTs and GTs. We're planning on attending War of the Roses (60 players), the London GT (a rumoured 200 players...), Caledonian revolution (normally around 90 players) and a couple of highlander events also; which is why we did this battle report! Here you have it; 1500pts of as cheesy as possible highlander goodness.
The UK highlander pack is basically 1500pts one CAD no allies, no formations, no other detachments. Forgeworld is allowed but no Supremacy suits. You can only have one of each unit except for troops which you may duplicate once you've purchased all possible troop options. Dedicated transports are also 0-1. It makes for more varied lists with units you wouldn't normally see creeping in. Despite this, we still managed some stinky lists
I brought Craftworld Eldar with all the trimmings and my opponent tested a Tau list with a few different choices.
Pre-game musings
Eldar are probably the strongest contenders in highlander due to the fact that they can still bring all their nasty toys to play with. Plenty of D plus a wraithknight, scatter-bikes and warp spiders means a tough game for Tau. If Tau go first they have a strong chance of one-shotting the WK with ignores cover D-missiles but I could counter-deploy out of marker-light range. The plan was either to go first and blast the Stormsurge off the table with WK + guided hornets ( ) or go second and play cagey, deploying the hornets off the table and everything else in ruins then weather the storm as well as possible before gunning for the Stormsurge. I wasn't worried much about the tanks. We both thought that this type of Eldar list would be quite common in competitive highlander play.
Craftworld Wu-Tang 1500pts
Craftworld Eldar CAD - 1499Pts
Farseer; Jetbike, Spirit Stone, Singing Spear 135
7 Windriders; 7 Scatter Lasers 189
5 Rangers 60 (Or are those kabalite warriors??? No one knows )
Hemlock Wraithfighter 185
3 Hornets; Dual Pulse Lasers 240
10 Warp Spiders; Exarch 200
3 D-Cannons 165
WraithKnight; 2 Scatter Lasers 325
Tau Empire 1500Pts
(Riptide used as Y-Vahra proxy)
Tau CAD
Commander Drone Controller
Breacher Team
Strike Team
8 Marker Drones
Y'Vahra
Hammerhead Ion Cannon, SMS, Disruption Pod
Skyray GunshipSMS, Disruption Pod
3 BroadsidesSMS, HYMP, EWO
Stormsurge Burst Cannon, Pulse-Driver, EWO, Shield Gen
Imperial Bunker
The Mission
We played the ITC mission with Big Guns Never Tire and modified maelstrom for secondary. No first blood. Dawn of war deployment.
We proceeded to roll up pre-game tingz and had the following:
Tau warlord trait: Conqueror of cities
Eldar warlord trait: Night attacker... I re-rolled and got night-attacker again...
Farseer psychics: Prescience, Guide, Shriek (I really like this set-up, it basically guarantees 2 twin-linked units a turn and turns the wraithknight into a killing machine)
Hemlock psychics: Shriek, Conceal
Tau won the roll to deploy first, and deployed the bunker in the middle with broadsides inside, and the rest of the army in as much cover as possible.
It looked like so:
I counter-deployed the eldar with the wraithknight out of range of marker-lights, D-cannons in ruins, jetbikes out of line of sight of the bunker/out of range of most other shooting and the warp spiders on the opposite side in ruins ready to flicker away ASAP. The hemlock, hornets and rangers were in reserve (rangers suck against SMS). It looked like so:
Tau turn 1
Spoiler:
Tau turn 1
Tau roll to hold both the objectives in their deployment zone - easily done.
Y'Vahra moves up like so.
Stormsurge puts down anchors
Y'Vahra, Skyray and Stormsurge all shoot the spiders (as I deployed the rest out of sight or range) and amongst all the flickering, only 2 warp spiders go down.
The hammerhead kills 3 jetbikes but they hold.
One D-Cannon goes down to broadside fire.
Tau score OBJ1 and 2
Tau 2 - Eldar 0
Eldar turn 1
Spoiler:
Eldar turn 1
Craftworld Wu-Tang moves up.
Bikes pop out, and shoot guided scatter lasers at the marker drones but fail to do a single wound! (He makes 12 3+ cover saves)
Warp spiders jet-pack towards the Y'Vahra and shooting does a wound.
Wraithknight moves up, looking at the bunker. He shoots... and he scores!!! The bunker explodes in glorious fashion, killing a broadside inside and wounding another.
The spiders and bikes hop back, and Eldar score 1 point.
Tau 2 - Eldar 1
Tau turn 2
Spoiler:
Tau turn 2
The drones move up to get sights on the wraithknight and Y'Vahra moves up again. 7 markerlights hit the wraithknight and combined fire from 4 D-missiles, 2 S10 blasts and 8D6 S5 shots only does a total of 4 wounds to the big guy! Hero!
The Y'Vahra then tries to charge the spiders (didn't shoot them) and takes 2 wounds in overwatch!!
Spiders lose one more and then hit and run spectacularly.
Tau score another 2 points.
Tau 4 - Eldar 1
Eldar turn 2
Spoiler:
All the Wu-Tang reserves show up. Interceptor puts a hull point on the wraithfighter, who whiffs in return.
Hornets slide on and murder the Y'Vahra with 12 S8 shots.
Combined fire from 2 Heavy Wraithcannons and all the scatter lasers in the army do nothing to the stormsurge. Spiders and jetbikes hop back. Eldar score nothing this turn.
Tau 4 - Eldar 1
Tau turn 3
Spoiler:
The whole army moves up.
Markerlights fire into the wraithknight yet again and 6 skyray missiles, ignoring cover, strip off a single wound!
The broadsides fire and manage to finish him off!
The stormsurge then charges into the warp spiders and kills 3, and they safely hit n run away.
Tau score 2 points
Not looking good for the eldar... Or is it?
Tau 6 - Eldar 1
Eldar turn 3
Spoiler:
[img]http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu3/jeruyoppa/2016-03-27%2022.40.28_zps38ermxfc.jpg[img]
The spiders, hornets, jetbikes and wraith-fighter all manoeuvre to get the stormsurge in their sights.
The farseer guides and presciences the hornets and jetbikes.
Hemlock does a wound.
Hornets do 3 wounds!
Scatter-bikes do 2 wounds...
And the warp spiders finish off the big chicken!
D-Cannons splatter the 2 remaining broadsides.
Eldar also score 2 for holding their 2 home objectives
Tau 6 - Eldar 3
Tau turn 4
Spoiler:
Not looking good for Tau now. Everything combines fire at the wraithfighter but spectactularly fail to penetrate it.
Tau score 1
Tau 7 - Eldar 3
Eldar turn 4
Spoiler:
The spiders and jetbikes move up to eye up the warlords unit. The farseer casts guide and prescience and combined fire splatters the commander and his drones all over the floor.
The hornets kill 2 remaining fire warriors on the right side.
The D-Cannons fire and splatter the hammer-head.
Tau 7 - Eldar 5
Tau turn 5
Spoiler:
The Tau are looking extremely thin on the ground now. The skyray manages to kill the wraithfighter with ignores cover SMS and the fire warriors actually kill a hornet.. but it may be too little too late.
They still manage to score kill a unit and their home objective though!
Tau 9 - Eldar 5
Eldar turn 5
Spoiler:
This could be last turn and Tau are ahead on maelstrom. I needed to place as many units on objectives as possible to steal the game.
Spiders and bikes shot at the last remaining fire warriors, killing 4 and causing the last man to flee. Hornets shoot at the skyray rocking a 2+ cover save to no avail. Everything jumps on objectives, with the farseer splitting off.
Eldar secure 3 objectives.... and the GAME ENDS!
Eldar victory - 1 contested objective and 3 objectives to Eldar.
Final score
Tau 9 - Eldar 19
Crushing victory!!
Post-game thoughts
Spoiler:
As I predicted, the Eldar just have too much firepower at their disposal, even at 1500 points in highlander play. The D-Cannons did a good job of wiping out everything which came into range and the wraithknight was a huge fire magnet. The warp spiders were the MVPs as usual, with the unit failing to die despite 2 charges and a hell of a load of shooting at them. The fact that Eldar are active in every single phase of the game, gives them an edge against all other armies - they can move huge amounts, use psychic powers to effectively twin-link 2 units every turn, shoot D weapons and loads of S6 shots and then finally assault move back/out of line of sight.
Tau are very strong, however suffer in the highlander format - lack of multiple riptides/re-rolling nova charges, lack of supremacy suits and lack of multiple broadside units impact on them severely. Despite my opponent choosing quite powerful, points-effective units, it was clear by turn 3 that they weren't worth their weight in gold as the Eldar were. You could of course argue that if the WK died earlier, or more damage was done in interceptor that there would've been a different result, but the Eldar onslaught is pretty brutal.
Let us know your thoughts, and if you want to see any other armies play. Top Yop signing out.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/03/30 17:41:49
Brilliant looking armies- both of them look great on the table.
I've never played the ITC type missions where you have two competing objectives- maelstrom and eternal war. I'm not sure I like the system- either you focus on the maelstrom points in which case you can sacrifice units to get objectives and be weakened for the end game, or you focus on destroying the enemy and just swoop in at the end of the game and grab all the objectives and win. It seems that the second method would work better than going after maelstrom points each turn. What are your thoughts on this? As I said, I have never tried these types of mission, so don't know which is more common.
I agree with your points, the highlander format does seem to play to the strengths of the Eldar very well. Though Eldar are strong in just about every tournament format. Not unbeatable, but a very tough army to face in the current game.
corrm wrote: Brilliant looking armies- both of them look great on the table.
I've never played the ITC type missions where you have two competing objectives- maelstrom and eternal war. I'm not sure I like the system- either you focus on the maelstrom points in which case you can sacrifice units to get objectives and be weakened for the end game, or you focus on destroying the enemy and just swoop in at the end of the game and grab all the objectives and win. It seems that the second method would work better than going after maelstrom points each turn. What are your thoughts on this? As I said, I have never tried these types of mission, so don't know which is more common.
I agree with your points, the highlander format does seem to play to the strengths of the Eldar very well. Though Eldar are strong in just about every tournament format. Not unbeatable, but a very tough army to face in the current game.
Thanks bud. I think they actually work well together, it gives armies a chance to fight back against armies which are obviously better at one mission. It also makes for a more complex game rather than 5th ed style shoot them until turn 5 then grab objectives.
Yeah Eldar are especially nasty in highlander where other armies are severely handicapped whereas they don't lose much
) or go second and play cagey, deploying the hornets off the table and everything else in ruins then weather the storm as well as possible before gunning for the Stormsurge. I wasn't worried much about the tanks. We both thought that this type of Eldar list would be quite common in competitive highlander play.
)
