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The challenge matches continue! This time, Mike challenges Reecius' Eldar with his nasty Mechdar list! Also, Las Vegas Open tickets are for sale and moving fast! February 7th, 8th and 9th of 2014 at Bally's in Las Vegas. 40K Singles is already 25% sold out (of 256 spots) and tickets have only been up for sale for 2 days! Check out our site, Frontline Gaming dot org for details and tickets!

Big win for the footdar! Awesome.

That was....interesting. I'm not sure I would have power rushed all my long range shooting units to within assault range first turn but to each his own. Congrats on the win once again Reece.

Interesting battle. I like to call that tactic...rushdar. As in, I'm-in-a-rush-to-get-my-a$$-kicked-over-dar.

Don't you ever lose a game?



I like the slave group in the background, diligently hunched over the painting bench. You can barely see the chains holding them in place!

Great report as usual. I do think you lose that match the majority of times to an opponent who doesn't rush (I just can't wrap my head around that decision). Tons of Serpents is as close to a hard counter as there is to Footdar.

Yes, the rush was a very confusing decision. The Prisms have absolutely no need to be anywhere near assault range and only one Serpent had close-range troops inside. The Prisms should have castled up against one of the central buildings to hide their rear armor and used their own hulls to block Serpent rear armor from Deep Strikers.

I guess the idea was to hurry and get the Scytheguard into range to flame the Hellions before Reserves came on, but the Hellions + Baron are only useful in CC anyway and are more expensive than the Scytheguard - the mech player could have forced them to come to him.

Once the footdar Reserves came on the mech player could have fallen back and taken them apart piecemeal. The mech player responded promptly to the Spiders, which was the right call, but he could have stayed away from the footdar deployment zone while ignoring the units there in order to deal with the War Walkers and Wraithknight while preserving board control. The WL could have been rendered a total non-presence (no long-range fire at all), the Ravager can't touch grav tank front/side armor and would have been picked apart by Prisms if it tried moving up, the Hellions are only advancing at 12" per turn and can't get too close to the Scytheguards' Serpent, and the Dire Avengers are only advancing at ~10.5" per turn and also can't hurt grav tanks.

The WK would have caused problems regardless, because it's just really hard to kill, but it probably should have been the second priority after the Spiders. It can smash a grav tank every turn, and sometimes it can also kill the unit inside. The Prisms should have gone after the Spiders (large blast that kills on a 2+) while three SL Serpents went after the WK. Three Serpents plus their DAs expect to kill the WK. It should have gone down in two turns, at most. Obviously the Scytheguard have a decent chance of killing it (they should go first, if they're close enough), and they don't have much to fear from a countercharge (although the WK can jump over their heads and go for something else).

Yeah...... I just don't get what the Mech player was hoping to achieve there. A charge like that might psych out a rookie, but against a vet player, that was just madness.

Good game. Good win!

Congratulation on the win.

Shame the Mechdar player made such a huge rookie mistake. As an experienced Eldar player he should have known that Wave Serpents number 1 weakness is getting assaulted, so putting them into assault range without any reason seems weird. Especially considering his mobility and ranged weapons would have allowed a turn two alpha strike anyways even staying outside of any possible assault distance. Also by staying back your reserves coming in from your table edge would have been unable to assist properly.

Still think properly played Mechdar will give Footdar a run for its money, but to be fair your list isn't really Footdar anymore

Silver platter.

Another enjoyable report. Just a shame that it wasn't that competitive, those skimmers had no business being within 24" of the hellions.

Would be good to see how this match up goes vs jy2's new mechdar. Call him out!

I think the rush could have worked. If he had stayed a bit back and not committed to the full flat out range to stay just out of assault range it may have caused issues for the footdar in having maneuver space when the reserves start coming on. However, I do agree that the fire prisms didn't need to move up all the way. Keeping them within support range of the Serpents is a good idea, but not so far.

Hammer and anvil deployment is the best deployment for Footdar vs. mechdar. At first you might think the long board is rough against the longer range guns, but realize it is the easiest deployment to get rear shots on the Eldar vehicles. So many of the Footdar units deep strike or outflank that unless the wave serpents and fire prisms stood pinned against the back board, they were going to get hit from behind. Any other type of deployment makes this tactic much harder to do.

The hammer and anvil deployment also makes it much harder to shoot first turn for the mechdar in nightfight. Any other type of deployment and they would have been able to move 12" and fire two weapons at 36" and cover the board in fire. Really the deployment scenario was the thing that saved the Footdar. It makes this game uphill for the mechdar.

People are getting a good lesson in list design with these battle reports. So many people are excited about mounting everything up in Wave Serpents, but if you do that then to many of your list points are tied up in passengers. The Footdar list has the advantage of having more list points actively engaged in the battle versus and fully mounted force.

Also I would hope people see that the Footdar list is much more mobile than one would expect. It is as mobile as a fully mounted list. Yes there are some fast movers like Helions and Jetbikes, but the outflankers and deep strikers give the list an alpha strike mobility most mechdar armies severely lack.

For this game a consideration for the mechdar player would have been to reserve a good chunk of his army, especially the Wraithguard in Serpent. It seems counter intuitive, but if the Footdar know where you are at, then their reserves can move to alpha your units. If, and this is a big if, you can fail a few reserve rolls, then when the Footdar deep strikers and outflankers come on they will have to be worried about your reserves moving onto the table and hitting them hard. I would consider this option only in a hammer and anvil deployment and especially in that type of deployment during nightfight.

In a kill points game I'd be scared to expose any units to assault if I can avoid it. Pre-measure to be at least 20' away from assault units is an absolute must. As some have said above, I find the flat out into assault range to be a very questionable maneuver. especially knowing that there's gonna be stuff deep striking/fast moving up as well.

That baron and the 2++ rerollable is brutal. I've seen it before and I'm just glad that it's somewhat random to get now a days otherwise it is extremely hard to actually counter. Maybe counterable if I get misfortune to cancel it out on. Possibly also counterable by terrify/horrify combo though fortune again makes it a tough nut to crack for DtW. Possibly a SM liby with the nullzone power may help. The last bastions of psy defense being space wolves runic weapons may not survive the next codex updates though I think the Nids will keep their shadows in the warp which may help vs this beast.

I understand why he rushed but I think he overdid it. He could have achieved the same effect without going all out. That being said, I think he could have also helped negate the effect of reserves by moving backward so that when he launched his attack he knew where everything would be.

I want to see this match happen again, but vs. a more competent player. Moving up the way he did made not one iota of sense. He would have taken very little, if any damage from you had he not rushed up and then there was a very real chance that in his next shooting phase he could have damn near removed all of the models you had on the table.

This should had been a win for the mechdar, but your opponent played very, very poorly. It is as if he completely forgot your reserves could DS/Outflank as well because he didn't seem to pay any mind to protecting against it.

Regardless, well played by you and goes to show that a bad general with a great list does not beat a good general without an "optimized" list.

This batrep just shows me more of what I already knew. Mechdar isn't all people think its cracked up to be. It's good dont get me wrong but it's clearly not the be all end all list out there for eldar. Because once you start taking out serpents which isn't that tough to do, it losing firepower and durability at an exponential rate.

This batrep just shows me more of what I already knew. Mechdar isn't all people think its cracked up to be. It's good dont get me wrong but it's clearly not the be all end all list out there for eldar. Because once you start taking out serpents which isn't that tough to do, it losing firepower and durability at an exponential rate.

Not saying that Mech-dar is the best army out there, but this battle report shows very little except that good players win out. If you put someone of Reece's skill level on that Mech-dar list, the game goes very differently. There was zero reason to rush up. If the Mech-dar player is patient, that is one of the toughest matches for Footdar (especially considering the deployment).

While the potency of Mech-dar does diminish quickly if the opponent can pop the Serpents, this is often easier said than done. Even an average of 10 strength 7 hits should have a hard time glancing a Serpent to death due to jink. Very few armies can bring that type of firepower to the table.

I have played with both all foot and more mechanized Eldar since the codex drop, and can tell you that Serpents do live up to the hype. I wouldn't make an Eldar army without at least two. I also really don't like the Fire Prism, and it seems as though the initial positive consensus is waning as people play them more.

Basically, I wouldn't take a great player winning against Mech-dar as a sign that the list isn't one of the best currently out there.

I wonder if anyone would care to see my mechdar against Reece's footdar?

Pretty much exactly what JGrand said. A very good player vs one who is not using his army correctly. At all.

I almost wish these challenges were more competitive. Otherwise always good batreps and thanks for them.

I wonder if anyone would care to see my mechdar against Reece's footdar?

Yes, please

The deployment favored footdar.

 jy2 wrote:
I wonder if anyone would care to see my mechdar against Reece's footdar?

I like this idea. I also like the idea of those footdar vs your Crons/Nids.

I'd like to see the Footdar compete with an equal (or close to) level general bringing an optimized list, that'd make for a more interesting match-up and also give a better idea of how powerful the Footdar are in a competent player's hands.

It looks like people here want to see a game truly worthy of a being a true challenge.

 jy2 wrote:
I wonder if anyone would care to see my mechdar against Reece's footdar?

I would like to see that batrep. It would also be interesting to see your greyzilla list vs Reece's footdar.

Reece I think to accommodate all these challenges you are getting you may just have to go on emergency sleep rotations, ie 4 hours a night...

That baron soaking the wounds was excellent. I would agree for such an important unit you probably need fearless or reroll morale. There are too many times a failed morale check can loose you the game for something with 3 KP and warlord in it.

Awesome Batrep as usual. I agree that the deployment type is what saved the footdar this game more than the huge mistake that the Mech player made. Both of those things combine gave Reece an opportunity to get the win. This past weekend my footdar faced a similar dilema facing a mech deldar list. But my loss outcome was pretty much determined by losing the advantage of the better table edge, and losing the roll to go first. I pretty much had to play it as Reece did in his game. The difference was that the deployment type was Dawn of War...which put his entire army in range of my stuff that I had to deploy. I put up a good fight, but lost. Both my opponent and I agreed that with the types of armies we each had...whoever went first that game was probably going to win. :shrug:

Reece, I definitely think you should take the Shard. It's such a cheap and easy way to make that Hellion unit fearless without having to rely on the pain token mechanism. I also agree with Darth...these reports show just how mobile a footdar army can really be now. I can definitely say it surprised most of my opponents this past weekend in the tournament I played in. BTW I took second place if anyone was wondering...LOL.

Jy2, you know I always enjoy a challenging game! If you want to bring out the Mechdar I would be fine with that, it is good practice. The only thing worse is Triple Dragon or Venom space. Venom Spam is the absolute worst.

@Thread

Yeah, I don't know why Mike bum rushed me, that was odd. Everyone in the room sort of looked at one another like, huh? But it's all good. We had a fun game. Mike is actually a good player and has done well at a lot of GTs, I think he just goofed here. Hammer and Anvil and Night Fight was the only reason I chose to go second as it saved me from a first turn Alpha Strike.

And yes, Footdar are more mobile than people think. If you use reserve tactics they can get all over the table which is good, you want threats on multiple axis.

I think had Mike played conservatively, it would have been very difficult for me. I think I still could have won, but it would have been significantly more difficult.

@CaptKaruthors

Yeah, I think the Shard is a must. The unit is just too expensive with too many critical assets to risk. Fearless means that unit is going nowhere to the last man. And congrats on the second place finish!

Another awesome report, well done Reece.

I'd love to throw down against your list, strangely Eldar are absent in my area.

And you're right, the shard of anaris is completely necessary here.

Well, if you are ever in the area come by and we'll have a game!

I'd love to take you up on that but unfortunately there's an ocean in the way, if a holiday ever takes me to the area I'll gladly drop in though, your store looks awesome and just oozes a friendly atmosphere.