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Battle Report 040816

1500 Points – White Scars Dual-Demi-Company Vs Eldar Windrider Host with 3 Wraith Knights

Preamble Ramble:

Nearly every model I'm using is a proxy. But they have a theme! The TL Lascannon Razorbacks are actually TL Assault Cannons. The Multi-laser Chimera are actually Las/Plas Razors. The two Vindis and the wrecked Griffon are Whirlwinds. So if you're looking for a pretty battle, this isn't it. It's a tale of the game, between two high-octane lists.

So this. THIS. Is the battle report I wanted to write earlier. My friend and I had a blast. This is one of the best games we've had in a long time. Why? Because the armies felt balanced. We agreed that this is a close-to-balanced battle. It was beautiful. For us, it was a fresh way to play. All-out, no holds barred I'm-gonna-make-you-bleed viciousness. We laughed about how obscene these lists would be to play against any kind of “funsies” list. We laughed at units disappearing like smoke. We talked tactics and counter-tactics through the game. Acknowledging my obscene luck in stealing the initiative. We discussed the Eldar's poor initial deployment on turn 2, instead of waiting for the post game. Talking back and forth about ways to correct and then capitalize on the mistake. Openly discussing the area denial created by the Devestators. The stupidly disgusting nature of a WK that can reroll it's saves. How keeping them together would have been better, and maybe putting one in reserve to act as a second wave.

Take a note of how often the WK's have less than a half-inch of their base in area terrain, in the pictures. This was us slugging it out on the table top and it was glorious!

Not something we'd want to do every day, mind you. Truthfully, we're going to have one, maye two rematches and I doubt I'll ever play this army again. The fun in this game was the discovery, not the revisiting. I'm pretty sure I could “perfect” the strategy, for my purposes, within two more games and that would be the end of the fun, for me.

The list I took was amazingly fluffy, in terms of playstyle, which I found pleasantly surprising. This list encourages overwhelming aggression in the first 2-3 turns, and then forces you to play a game of stalling out your opponent until “imagined reserves” arrive at the end of the game. They really do play like a spearhead force, annihilating the opposition near the objectives then switching over to defense mode half-way through the game. An exciting new strategy for me.

I'm accustomed to the attrition wars I'd fought with Guard, which boil down to resource exchange management. I was good at it, I might add. It may sound boring to you, but I really enjoy it.

Then I'd moved onto Marines, which I've been playing as a mixture of Lightning Raid and Take and Hold units. I find that suits the goals of 7th edition rather well.

This was different. Everything you have starts as super-aggressive, then fades back to area denial / survival tactics. Fun and rewarding in its novelty, but I expect that once the novelty wears off, the overall predictability of how it plays would become unpleasant. And despite its power level, it is painfully predicatable. I expect my opponent will crush me the next time we play. I'm accustomed to his units and overall play style, so I had a distinct advantage.


Pre-Game

We rolled The Emperor's Will so we both had an objective to deploy in our half of the Board. We rolled Dawn of War, and the Eldar player picked the Northern Edge.

Terrain


Terrain – View from North – Show height of terrain



The Eldar player placed his objective in the Tower to the North-East. Per my current strategy, I placed my objective as close as I could to his, to create a cluster of objectives. This is one of the first “luck” factors that was on my side. Had I deployed my objective first, my opponent would have placed his as far as possible from mine. As it is, I placed mine as close to the centre line as I could, right against the stockade wall. By keeping the objectives together, I can play to my strengths by dumping as much ObSec in one area, and creating as much area denial in one area as I can muster.

Objective Placement



The Eldar player rolled on the Strategic traits, and rolled Master of Ambush. Warlord and 3 Non-Vehicle units can infiltrate. 3 infiltrating WK, that I wouldn't know where they were going to wind up until after I deployed? Joy! Not quite, but close. The Farseer took his escort with him, and somehow managed to sneak 2 thirty-foot tall Gargantuan creatures onto the field with him. Damned Sneaky Eldar. He deployed his infiltrators to the West. One WK is behind the central building, in case you miss it.The 3rd WK is in the North-East, hiding beside the tower. Yes, it's a Flying stand. Nobody actually owns these lists... right? Also, there's a unit of Scatter Bikes hiding behind the ruins in the North-West.

I wind up swarming towards the objectives with my scout moves, and ensuring my Grav-Devs are safely out of LOS within the SE circle of stones by surrounding them with tanks. I want to shoot with them first turn, but not have them killed. That WK in the NE is coming at me, Brah, and there's a lot of Scatter Lasers to worry about. Normally I'd leave them embarked for protection, but I need to put some early hurt on the close WK. I'm pretty sure I'm going to switch to Rhinos for the Devs, so that they can fire their “increased accuracy” Grav Cannons from the hatch.

I've left my empty HB Razorbacks, a Whirlwind, and a Las/Plas Razor with Plasmagun in the Southern Forest. I do this because I can only cram so much stuff in the SE corner, but also because in that position, they can hopefully decrease the places that the ScatterBikes can hide out of LOS, and can apply pressure to them if they make a poor jump roll. Technically, they're strong enough to potentially hurt WK's as well, but they're pretty well suited to putting hurt on the Scats. They're also a bit of a distraction. They're capable of drawing fire, if my opponent wants to move to centre with his Scats, which he'll need to do late-game if he wants to approach the Objectives with the Bikes. Long-term planning. It's important.

I forget to boost a terrain piece with my Techie. Because sometimes I'm a genius, and sometimes I'm an overgrown monkey that wears clothes. Oh, I had to climb a ladder to take the pictures. It's not just a completely random comparison.

The Eldar player rolls powers, and the important ones are Guide and Fortune. Do you know how broken WK are? Give them Twin-Linked and Re-roll failed saves. Super-fun-times are had by not-me.

The WK are spread out, which turns out to be a failure on my opponent's part. Another “lucky” break for me, in that I don't need to contend with concentrated Evil.

Eldar List:

Windrider Host

Farseer on Bike with Spear and Stone of Psychic Awesomeness
Warlock on Bike with Spear
4x Scatter Bikes
4x Scatter Bikes
3x Scatter Bikes
Vyper

Wraith Constructs
Wraithknight with 2x Heavy Wraith Cannons and 2x Scatter Lasers
Wraithknight with 2x Heavy Wraith Cannons and 2x Scatter Lasers
Wraithknight with 2x Heavy Wraith Cannons and 2x Scatter Lasers

Marine List:

Battle Demi-Company A
125 - Kor'Sarro Khan: Master of the Hunt, Warlord Slayer, Moonfang [sword]
. 90 - Tactical Squad [5]: [Naked]
. Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
100 - Tactical Squad [5]: Meltagun
. Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
105 - Tactical Squad [5]: Grav Gun
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
100 - Assault Squad [5]: 2x Flamer
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
105 - Devastator Squad [5]: Grav Cannon w/ Grav Amp
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter

Battle Demi-Company B
. 90 - Chaplain:
110 - Tactical Squad [5]: Lascannon
. Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
105 - Tactical Squad [5]: Plasma Gun
. Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
105 - Tactical Squad [5]: Grav Gun
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
100 - Assault Squad [5]: 2x Flamer
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
105 - Devastator Squad [5]: Grav Cannon w/ Grav Amp
. Razorback: Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter

Armoured Task Force
65 - Techmarine:
65 - Whirlwind:
65 - Whirlwind:
65 - Whirlwind:

Initial Deployment – After Infiltrate / Scout moves were made



It Begins! Unleash the Stolen Initiative Strategy!

Sure, it might not be a strategy per se, but man does it help when it happens! I manage to steal the initiative. Yet another lucky break for me. You might have noticed that I've had a fair deal of good luck so far. You'd be right. Good thing, too...

You know how you read threads, and the Eldar player's always whining about how OP Grav is. “Marines are OP, they've got guns that kill my OP Wraith Knight without even trying. They're cheese and should be banned!”

Well, in all fairness, Grav Cannons are stupidly good at killing WK. In the post-game review, I realized I shouldn't have scouted my Devs, as they weren't embarked in a Razorback, so I cheated. They shouldn't have been in range first turn. But really, I just should have put them in a Rhino instead which would have let them move, so my opponent didn't begrudge me my mistake. It's a new list for me and he usually plays White Scars when he plays Marines, so we agreed the fault was shared between us. Mostly I blamed him for not knowing about “his own” special character, and he called me a dirty cheater, but I think that evens out to sharing the fault.

I shot the Northern Razors at the WK, a mixture of Las / Plas and TL Assault Cannons, and managed to score one wound, I think.

The two Dev squads, with their higher than average BS and Grav-Amps scored 3 wounds between them. Pretty good for 4+ cover and then FNP to negate wounds. He rolled slightly above average saves, but still. Grav Devs are probably going to make an appearance in my future lists, because they're fun and not an instant win button. Just a powerful area denial tool.

But holy crap, are Whirlwinds ever good at supressing Scatter Bikes! First blood to me, as I sniped his Jet-Lock out of a unit of bikes. A game has really lost it's sense of reality when a LOS ignoring barrage weapon is a better sniper rifle than an actual sniper rifle. *Sigh* The cheap points cost for them, coupled with my opponent needing to deal with them to save his bikes from destruction really made them an incredible investment in points. He ignored them for a turn or two, until he realized how highly they needed to be prioritized if he wanted bikes alive at the end to steal objectives. Yet another “lucky” break for me.

My notable damage was First Blood for a Warlock [Council], and putting some real hurt on the NE WK.

All photos are taken at the end of the turn, so in many cases, Jetbikes popped forwards, shot, then jumped back... just so you know.

Marine Turn 1



The Eldar now reap their terrifying revenge. The Farseer Guides his unit and Fortunes the Southern WK. Free Razorbacks are good, but facing 6 Heavy D-Cannons and 18 Scatter Lasers is only going to end one way. The Eldar wreck 4 / 10 Razors, and put 2 HP [Stunned] on another. Half my transports are effectively dead in the first round of fire. Ow-Chuh! I'm 85% sure my game is over, and I'm going to be tabled.

But that would be a terrible battle report, wouldn't it?!?

I never give up until the 3rd turn, no matter how bad it looks, but man. I've been bitten pretty hard and I'm reeling from losing so much in one turn.

Eldar Turn 1



I shake it off. Shake it off. Shake-shake-shake-shake it off, shake it off. Whoa-hoah-oh-hoh! Sometimes, I'm a 14 year old girl.

I kill the NE WK with a disembarked Grav Gun, Meltagun, Grav Cannon and Assault Cannons. I put some [3?] wounds on the central WK with the rest, and have established control of the objectives, pushing my opponent out of the Eastern half of the board. I have accomplished my strategy of establishing early control of the objectives, and have sufficient firepower remaining to deny the area near the objectives. Now, I've just got to keep pressure on my opponent to keep him the Duck out of Fodge.

I mock my opponent and his flimsy “unkillable” WK. He tells me to take the empty flying stand and insert it into myself. I tell him it wouldn't change anything, his army couldn't be any shittier. Sometimes, I'm a dick. He reminds me that I'm vulnerable every time I climb the ladder, particularly since my [very] recent vasectomy and I concede that he's won this round.

Marine Turn 2


I was bitten, but I bit back. My opponent is impressed by how effective the Marines are at 24” firepower. We discuss the merits of JSJ at 36” range, in the context of needing to eventually get back to the objectives, but he'll need to guess the right turn to make his move. Without ObSec, he'll need to wipe me out from the objective before he can claim it. Tricky, and probably why most ScatterBike / WK lists are various combinations of CAD's.

He “retreats” destroying another 4 tanks in the process. I observe how very, VERY lucky I was to get first turn. I'd have suffered 2 rounds of fire before getting a second round to attack. That would have critically lowered my firepower, and without that very lucky circumstance, I would have been in rough shape right now. I reflect that despite having 550 “free points” of Razorbacks, my list “feels” like a modern 1500 point list, probably owing to everything in my list being a little overpriced / underwhelming compared to the lists from the New Hotness Codices.

He jumps the damaged WK up into the central ruin, and Guide / Fortunes it. The undamaged Knight moves forward, putting about 1/4” of his base into the forest. Lame. Causes a bit of a crunch for me. Do I tackle the harder to kill WK in the centre with fewer wounds, or do I go for the easier wounds on the Southern WK... knowing that I'm playing a delaying game and will eventually have a chance to put a “predictable” 3 wounds on a WK with my Grav Cannons?

Despite the die in the NE corner saying “3” it's actualy the end of turn 2. We turned it over before I had a chance to take a picture.

Eldar Turn 2

There's not much for me to say. I decide to go against my usual instincts and try to apply as much damage as possible to the Southern Knight. I hope to put two or three wounds on, which would make my opponent loathe to move up to the Danger Zone! of the Grav Cannons and Gun/s.

I only wind up doing one wound. The bikes are out of reach, the Central Knight is practically invulnerable... Sigh. Delaying game, this turn.

Korsarro and his Flamer weilding friends move to the “front” of the wall, to create a No-Bikes zone, as best they can. Maybe they'll draw fire from the central WK, to keep the Whirlwinds alive?

Marine Turn 3


The Eldar player realizes he needs to silence the Whirlwinds if he wants to get his bikes within 4 feet of the objectives to sneak onto the objectives in two turns, so focusses the WK on killing them. So no dice on the distraction Carnifex. More JSJ from the Bikes, not much damage, but they've moved forwards with their Jump moves, which is something I'm not going to stand for!

Eldar Turn 3


Khan! Get out there and punch those insolent bastards in their pointy faces! At the very least, make them back away from those objectives! The Razorback moves flat-out and stops beside the hangar. It's hard to see, but there are open hangar doors that are high enough to typically block LOS to a unit hiding behind them. Say... if they are forced to make an emergency disembark move because their Razor finds itself having chunks sucked away into the warp and the rest of it ventilated by Scatter Lasers. Maybe Khan will even have a chance to use his fancy Instant Death causing sword that can hurt anything with a T value?

Just sayin.

Some boys move into the tower, some others hide behind it. Everybody shuffles to make the strongest effort to create area denial with their Grav Cannons, Guns, and Plasma. I take a few pot shots and reduce the central WK to 2 remaining wounds...

The Grav Devs in the circle of stones have done AMAZING work for me, despite two turns of zero offence. The area denial is priceless in this game! They're working beautifully towards my strategy of early objective capture, long term holding.

Marine Turn 4


The Eldar player casts more Fortune and Guide on his WK. The Bikes continue to JSJ out of sight, but they're forced backwards by Khan's presence. My opponent knows this, so he jumps his central WK down to fire Scatter Lasers at Khan's group, killing a couple, but only a couple. I hope he flubs his assault roll. He also knows that he can't claim the NE Tower objective while I'm in it... so he pulps it with his D-Guns. The boys inside suffer 4d6 S6 hits as part of the Detonation of the Building. There were no survivors. Sigh.

Tower is replaced with a suitably sized ruin. Mostly suitable. Vaguely right shape.

Notice how the lower WK still has his toe in cover? Stupid rules. Oh well. Khan's Assault Squad has lost a couple dudes, and I'm in a desperate way to get rid of a WK before they both overrun me. Also notice, he flubbed his assault roll.

Told you your army couldn't be shittier. Sometimes, I like a running gag.

Eldar Turn 4


The WK on the Ground is within range of a single Grav Gun, but he's re-rolling saves. So Khan gets the brilliant idea of going out in a Blaze of Glory, thanks to his Sword of Get-Lucky-and-Kill-a-Monstrous-Creature. I fire with the Grav Gun... 3 wounds! Hells yes!

Saved one, did not feel the pain from the other. Crap. Still alive at one wound. Chuck a Krak grenade? Plink! No damage. CHEEE-AAARGE!

Khan and the WK swing at the same time. The WK squashes a couple of dudes. Khan makes a pathetic 2 hits.

I roll to wound. You've got to know that Khan's sword is special. I manage to roll a 6. No Armour Save. FNP roll is....

....

...

Not allowed, thanks to Khan's Sword! My Warlord slays a WK in close combat! EPIC! We consolidate into the ruins, below the last WK. I'm going to push him forwards next turn, or I'm going to try to chop more wounds out of him. Khan's sword does extra Wounds against GMC's, and it's the right kind of pressure at the right time.

I'm holding both objectives, and he only has non-ObSec units to come in with. Only one can reasonably shift a unit off of an objective, and if it does so, will finally be in the Danger Zone! I think I'm going to pull this off!

Marine Turn 5


My pointy-eared, Goblin of an opponent has some decisions to make. The odds of shifting my force off of the objectives is low. If he sprints forwards with Bikes now, he won't have the firepower to make them take a break test. If he doesn't sprint, the game could end and he'll be out of luck.

He plays the odds. Game will probably continue to turn 6.

He winds up killing my Heroic Leader and his single follower with a volley from a Vyper. Nothing quite like having your MVP killed out of the blue by a “tax” unit. Oh well, that's why we roll the dice.

He dumps fire into the unit holding the Northern objective. A bit of good luck on his part, a bit of bad luck on mine, and they fail their break test. They run off of the Objective! What the Hell, guys?

He hops the WK down, and fires / charges into a unit holding the lower objective. This draws them outside of the 3” control range. Oh crap. If he wipes them out and the game ends, it will be a tie. First Blood to me, Slay the Warlord to him. That's just lame.

We dice. He squashes a couple guys. I reroll attacks thanks to my Chappie leading the squad. He saves the couple of wounds I cause... Damned WK. I can't fall back due to Fearless...

But I've got Hit and Run, thank you kindly! I make my escape! I run back to the Objective! That WK is going to be in a world of hurt when I open up with the Grav Cannons and Gun [?] and everything else I can muster...

Eldar Turn 5


Except there isn't another turn.

My opponent rolls a 2, and the game ends. Final Score Marines 4, Eldar 1.

Huzzah!

So we do our usual post-game run down. I had a fortunate mission, fortunate setup, and my opponent made a mistake by letting me take the WK on piecemeal.

He's not so sure, but I'm pretty convinced that had I not stolen the initiative, I'd have lost. Even with “2050” points against his 1500, I'm pretty sure I'd have lost.

Even then, if he'd been more patient and just hugged 36” range for the first turn or two, I wouldn't have had any real firepower to go after him with, except the Whirlwinds. Sure, a handful of Lascannons on the Razors, but that's piddly seeing as they'd be shooting Wraith Knights.

Insults were hurled. Empties cleared. Ashtrays emptied. More insults were hurled and hands were shaken. Models put away and we shot the gak for a while. Made another empty. We agreed to play the lists again, but not our next game. I've been painting some other stuff and I want it to hit the table.

Anyhow, I always like knowing what the “high end” lists are playing like, and I've had a chance to do so. He based his list off a big Tourney-Winning list. I based mine off of what I thought would work against high-end lists.

To do it again, I'd take the Devs and at least one set of Tacs and give them Rhinos with Grav Cannons. Those are just cherry with this list. Scout on top of the objectives and just camp the night away, plinking at whatever gets close.

I'd drop the flamers from the Assault Squads, and probably try to work points to take Vet Sarges and Eviscerators, if I could. My meta has just enough assault happening that I think the boost to Khan and the Chappie would be worth it.

And I'd remember to use the Techie's cover boost. Grrrr.

We agreed that either list would just crush a non-hardcore list. We're probably going to sit down with our group to hammer out some official house rules, because neither of us wants to have to play those lists every game, just to have a reasonable game in which either side could expect to have a chance at winning.

7th edition has been unpleasant for us. Neither of us likes that we feel the “need” to fix the rules. We've had things we didn't like before, but nothing like this. We enjoyed this game for the exploration of it. We plumbed the depths, but we don't want to live there. Just visit with lots of preparation. The high-end power levels were never this high. We've played since 2nd. We aren't nostalgic. There have always been problems but this game is such a mess, any more.

But this game was fun.

I hope you enjoyed the read! Long days and pleasant nights,

Tom Parks

Nice report! You can have a good game with any rules set, I just don't like the increased chance of a bad one these days.

uh, you do realize the marine list was over 1500 points right? you pay for all those razorback upgrades...

@ Kestral: Glad you enjoyed it!

@ Largo39: If you check the points per "FOC" slot, you'll note that the points are correct. For example, 5x "Naked" Tactical Marines do not cost 90 points. If you factor in the upgrade points for the Razorback, however, points balance. Same deal with 5x Tactical Marines with a Meltagun. They do not cost 100 points... but if you factor in the points for a Razorback upgrade... List is legit.

I thoroughly enjoyed this report. Thanks for posting.