Neil places his 2 objectives near his back edge with his fortification and grotz nearby. 3 wagons are in front of the ADL with zogwort + lootas in the closest one, kff mek + boyz in the middle, and 15 lootas in the furthest. The remaining lootas went into the far area terrain, koptaz in front of them, and the remaining 19 boyz reserved.



I pre-measure everything to be safe from turn 1 night fighting except the wraithknight. Beasts are in the near corner with baron, spiritseer, and farseer attached. Wraithguard are in the central serpent, dire avengers on the far side with artillery behind the wall. I reserved both jetbike squads and the venom. War walkers are outflanking. I don't try to seize.

Deff koptaz scout and move up but end up backing away from the wraithknight. His first volley with lootas does 4 wounds to my wraithknight as I failed way more saves than expected.



Wraithknight gets fortune, beasts get conceal. Serpents move up 12" favoring the right flank with the knight. Beasts advance, but cautiously at first. Only the koptaz are in range due to night fight and I tag them with serpents for first blood. Wraithknight's shots on a wagon get saved.

19 boyz arrive in the far corner and run up. 2 squads of lootas fire at my knight and take it down despite fortune. The last squad removes a hull point from the central serpent.



My bikes and venom arrive from reserve, but not my walkers. Beasts get conceal and fortune. Artillery get prescience. Serpents move up to put the lootas in terrain exactly 36" from their lasers. Beasts advance and I keep bikes and the venom back and safe. Combined serpents and artillery knock the lootas in terrain down to 5 models who pass morale.

Not much movement. Lootas successfully take out both serpents and I lose an avenger and wraithguard in each explosion.



My walkers arrive but on the left/close edge when I really wanted them on the right, further from the battle wagons. Beasts get conceal, prescience, and fortune. Everything advances except avengers who hug the wall and pull back towards by rear objective. Bikes try to block themselves from loota sight and bide time for a last turn grab. Walkers battle focus towards the ADL and focus fire the grotz not in cover as their weapon mounts are high enough to see well over the wall. Four models remain and they pass morale. My artillery kills another loota or two.

Zogwort's wagon moves up 6" and he jumps out to try and squig my warlord. Luckily, I pass the roll-off. The wagon with boyz rams my walkers, but I only take 1 hull point. The third wagon pulls back behind the ADL. All lootas combine fire and take down 2 walkers. The rest of his shooting bounces off fortuned beasts.



Battle wagon gets doomed. Beasts get prescience and conceal. My warlord drops from the beast squad to join wraithguard who take the middle objective. Beasts move up to surround the wagon. My last walker moves to get side shots on the boyz' wagon but immobilizes itself on a wrecked walker. Wraithguard insta-gib zogwort. Beasts assault the wagon and surround it, but the baron explodes it. The aftermath of the explosion is 8 dead khymerae, and 12 dead lootas with the last 3 fleeing.

The boyz wagon pulls away from the walkers. The 3 fleeing lootas rally with insane courage. He focuses everything on the beasts out of cover and I lose several more despite fortune. He also explodes my last walker.



Beasts move up next to the rallied lootas. Wraithguard are joined by the spiritseer with conceal. Bikes claim my rear objective and the others go mid to turbo boost onto one of the ork objectives.

We've got enough time for another turn, but after talking over a few contingencies, my opponent concedes to me. I'm holding objectives 3-1 (or 3-0 after boosting my bikes). My beasts are going to assault the last 3 lootas and bounce onto the closest objective. I also scored first blood and linebreaker between beasts and bikes. My opponent could shoot and assault my bikes and beasts (if the game continued) and possibly secure his two objectives, but he doesn't have enough units left to take his objectives and remove one of mine. We call it 11-0 based on objectives, linebreaker, and first blood at the end of turn 5. This tournament is win/loss so it's 15 battle points for the win.

This was a really intense but fun game. Neil's list definitely had the tools to take me out. If it were me, I'd have deployed all lootas on foot on the back edge with boyz in front of them and empty wagons in front of them to zoom around and deffroll stuff. It would have created target overload as I'd have to deal with the wagons in my face, 38 scoring boyz, and 45 lootas all separately. I never actually had to engage his boyz and the wagons did very little so it was more like my army against 45 lootas. He took out the wraithknight on turn 2 and both serpents on turn 3, but never moved forward to engage me so those loses meant very little in the scheme of the mission.

I probably could have played the beasts more aggressively, but going second I didn't want to lose the whole unit before I could get conceal and fortune up. Lootas in battle wagons are even more scary because they can move 6" and still snap shot 48" up to 45 shots. The wraithknight didn't kill anything, but drawing every loota shot for 2 turns allowed the rest of my army to get in place. That's where a lot of the internet analysis of knights falls down in my opinion. Yes, they are not very killy, but they're the toughest unit in the game (barring psychic daemons) in an army of relatively fragile units. By drawing all the fire, they allow the glass hammer units to do more hammering which usually flips the war of attrition in favor of the Eldar.

Next up is big guns never tire against double heldrake CSM with screamers and a disc herald.

He deploys everything except the drakes. Starting on the left are 10 CSM, screamers, cultists + sorc, 10 CSM, oblits, plague bearers, and oblits. We decided to put the odd objective dead center. His objective is in the ruin on the right in front of the plague bearers.



I deploy my valuable assets behind a bunker. My objective is right in front of the (scoring) artillery. War walkers are on the far flank (we called everything 'ruins') banking on cover + night fight to keep them alive turn 1. Wraithknight is back a bit so that only lascannons can hit it. Beasts are up front with all 3 characters attached. Both bike units are reserved. I don't attempt to seize.

Screamers get grimoire'd and advance. They eventually turbo-boost left towards my walkers. CSMs shuffle around and oblits move to get LoS on my walkers. Plague bearers shuffle around the objective in the tall ruin and will stay there all game. Central oblits target my walkers with lascannons and despite night fight, 2 explode and the last is stunned! The oblits on the right put 2 wounds on the wraithknight.



The screamers are in striking distance of my beasts so I move them up. Both serpents advance. Wraithknight (guided) jumps towards oblits followed by the venom. Wraithknight and venom kill 1 oblit and the 2 survivors fall back. Wave serpents and artillery take out about half the of cultists. Beasts assault screamers and both sides take a few casualties and we lock.

Both drakes arrive and fly up to my serpents (each one actually passes wing tips over the lead serpent). The tzerald uses precognition and perils. He then uses prescience and perils again! First blood to me thanks to double perils and before he could even use the grimoire.



CSM on the left move up to help the screamers. Cultists and more CSM head for the middle with 3 oblits following. The 2 fleeing oblits rally and jump into terrain. Double vector strikes explode the wraithguard's serpent. Double flamers kill 4 wraithguard. The sorceror tries puppet master on my wraithknight and perils also! It goes off and he targets my venom, but misses both shots. The CSM next to my beasts fail a 4" assault thanks to one man remaining in terrain. My beasts take the screamers down to 1 model and I fail my hit-and-run check.



One of my bike units arrives and hides in a ruin on my far right with no windows (they stay here until the final turn). My wraithknight jumps towards the central objective keeping on my side of the ruin. The venom follows behind. My last serpent moves behind one of the drakes. My last wraithguard and walker shuffle around. The wraithknight ID's two oblits from the full squad. I try to barrage snipe his warlord but he passes enough rolls and I kill a handful of cultists. Wraithguard misses and serpent wiffs against the drake. My beasts finish off the last screamer and consolidate.

Drakes pivot and fly right. Leftmost CSM surround my beasts. Rightmost CSM and cultists surround the central objective. Vector strikes wreck my venom. Flamers take out my last wraithguard and a few beasts. Central CSM and all oblits focus on my wraithknight with plasma but he doesn't take any damage. CSM on the left pistol down a couple beasts, assault, lose combat, and get swept.

Forgot to take a pic on my turn. I had actually spent too much time chatting with a spectator who doesn't play 40k but was asking a lot of questions. Promoting the hobby and such... you know. As a result, we're quickly running out of time.

My last bikes arrive and park next to the other unit in a ruin with no windows. I renew 1 wound on the wraithknight. My serpent heads for the middle along with the disembarked kabalites. Wraithknight jumps onto the central objective 1" away from the CSM, but actually fires at oblits (trying to get the +vp's for heavies) and kills 1. My beasts assault and kill the remaining cultists and his warlord/sorceror.

Drakes turn again and pass over my beasts. Between str7 vectors and flamers, I lose the beasts and all 3 IC's. Central CSM's fire on my kabalites, killing 3 and force the last 2 to run.



I move the serpent over 6" and dump out the avengers. Kabalites fall back again. Walker moves over to my objective to make sure it's mine at the end. Wraithknight gibs a lone oblit. Artillery and avengers combine fire and wipe out the remaining CSM. Walker and serpent combine fire on the plague bearers and kill half of them.

Last turn due to time. Drakes hover and backtrack towards the middle. The last oblit heads for the objective. I lose my avengers to flamers but the oblit is unable to hurt my knight.



I finally move out my bikes. One unit takes Craig's objective and the other boosts into the back for linebreaker. My serpent and walker finish off the plague bearers. The knight takes out the last oblit.

We call the game there due to time (and only heldrakes left). I've got all 3 objectives, first blood, linebreaker, warlord, and 2 heavy support kills. Craig got my warlord. Final score is 14-1.

Well, this game went a lot better than I had hoped. The sad thing is it was mostly decided by Craig's bad dice (notice he's also using Vegas casino dice . Suffering 3 perils on turn 2, losing his tzerald before he could use grimoire, and giving me first blood was pretty brutal. The heldrakes were bosses taking out a serpent, 5 wraithguard, venom, beasts, spiritseer, farseer, and the baron. I could have played better against them, and will next time. Avoiding the arrival vector strike is key I think. The oblits, CSM, and plague bearers were non-factors after turn 2 due partially to dice and partially to list design. Craig's always a joy to play though and always good for a few laughs so it was an enjoyable game for sure.

This tournament is win/loss with battle points so I've got 30pts (15 per victory) at this point. Amongst the other undefeated players after 2 rounds are Calypso2ts (daemons), Crimthaan (old SM + tau), Dave (same guy I played in round 3 in both July and August), a tyranid player (2 walking tyrants, 2 tervigons, 2 t-fexes), and Sinistermind (eldar w/ 4 serpents, 2 prisms, WK) out of 18 players.

Stay tuned for the final round and results.

I deploy everything centrally with the wraithknight on the left flank and walkers on the right flank. The Dark Eldar themed terrain definitely created some unique LoS and deployment dilemmas. I deployed one unit of bikes to grab the relic and one was reserved.



Dave's deployment. 30 man blob is on the bottom. CCS chimera is next to them, Coteaz's chimera was above. 20 man blob was central with the NDK. Harker's unit infiltrated under the landing pad in the top left corner. Both flyers are reserved. Dave tries to seize twice but fails.

Walkers get guide and artillery get prescience and mental fortitude with a perils on my spiritseer. I second guess my original choice to grab the relic with bikes and send them up the ramp instead. I put the wraithguard serpent right next to the relic with beasts. Walkers push across their flank and wraithknight with the avenger serpent push up the left. Artillery kills a couple guys from the 2 man blob. Both serpents and wraithknight target the CCS chimera but the dice and night fight defeat me and I only cause 2 hull points. Walkers take out a few of Harker's men.



Here's my first "oh gak" moment when the NDK jumps across the middle and I realize I have overextended my wave serpent. The 20 man blob follows behind but there's not much movement. I lose half a dozen beasts despite night fight. Harker's unit takes down one walker. The 30 man blob puts a wound on the wraithknight. The NDK makes his assault against my serpent and explodes it with the HoW attack, killing one wraithguard and earning first blood.

Bikes stay out. Artillery gets prescience and mental fortitude, walkers get guide. My beasts are in a precarious position being wrapped around the serpent's crater but I keep them close in case I have to assault the NDK. Wraithknight jumps over and will try to assault the 20 man blob. Bikes jump up the big tower. Wraithguard bingo the NDK with a distort shot. My serpent wrecks the CCS chimera. Artillery tries to snipe his warlord and fail. Walkers kill a couple more of Harker's men. My wraithknight rolls double 1's and fails his assault on the 20 man blob...



Sentinels arrive on the top flank to go after walkers. The vendetta also arrives and angles for the walkers. The CCS walks around their wreck and Coteaz disembarks solo to try and shriek my wraithknight. The 20 man blob walks aggressively up the middle. Coteaz gets shriek off and I roll a 16 on my leadership test, losing my wraithknight with one shot. Combined fire up top finishes off my walkers. combined central fire kills off all my wraithguard and half of my beasts. Man, I lost a lot of units this turn...

My bikes arrive and aim for the sentinels. Beasts get prescience, artillery gets guide and fortitude. The 20 man blob gets hallucinated and cannot strike blows in CC! My last serpent moves 12" towards the relic. Beasts swing around to assault the 20 man blob. Artillery snipes out an autocannon team from the 30 man blob. Both bike squads fire on sentinels but only remove 1hp from each end. Beasts assault the 20 man blob and kill most of it, but we remain locked thanks to stubborn.



The last flier arrives and both head right for the relic. We're running out of time and trying to fit in as many turns as possible. The 30 man blob heads for the middle but autocannons and snipers remain stationary. The CCS and Coteaz head for the ongoing assault. The henchmen disembark. All of his shooting this turn is ineffective... I think I lost 1 bike and 1 wound on artillery. Coteaz and the CCS make it into assault with my beasts and I take heavy losses thanks to several str6 attacks. I fail my hit-and-run test...

Rushing very fast now as we're under 15min left. I hallucinate the 30 man unit and pin them. Bikes, serpent, and venom remain close to the relic for a last turn grab. Artillery snipe out another autocannon team from the 30 man blob. Serpent and venom target henchmen but they pass most of their saves. Beasts finish off the 20 man blob, but I cannot scratch his warlord or Coteaz. The Baron goes down to a str6 attack.



Both fliers hover and drop off their units. The PCS grabs the relic. Combined fire takes out my venom, kabalite warriors, and central bikes. Since his PCS grabbed the relic and we're pretty much out of time, I cannot grab it myself. I lose the rest of my beasts and both characters in assault to Coteaz's hammer and the Commander's power fist. We decide to sneak in one fast turn.

I disembark my avengers. All of my combined fire kills the PCS with the relic. I turbo boost my last bike into a corner linebreaker position.

The vets are more than 6" from the relic so they cannot grab it. Dave puts all his ling range shots into my linebreaker bike and it eventually goes down. We do some quick math and call the game there.

Dave got first blood and my warlord while I scored nothing for a 0-2 loss! Well, I really misplayed this game and paid for it in the end. If I could do it all over, I would have chosen to deploy second, refused a flank, focused fire on one side of his forces, and use the beasts and WK to keep him off the relic. My dice were also terrible this game while his were on fire. Firing both serpents and WK at a chimera turn 1 and only causing 2hp was disappointing. My artillery landed several wounds on his warlord and he passed all LoS and/or armor saves. Coteaz one-shotting my WK with a shriek was icing on the cake. In the end, Dave is very skilled player, painter, and is fun to play against. After defeating him in round #3 both July and August, I'm actually happy he won this time.

After painting and sportsmanship was tallied up, these were the final results (total/battle/painting/sports):
Dave K 71/45/15/11 1st (3rd round opp) IG
Erich 63/45/7/11 2nd (blog author: Calypso2ts) Daemons
Andy 60/45/10/5 3rd (blog author: Crimthaan) old SM+Tau
Aaron S 60/33/14/13 (me) best sports/painting!
Paul 55/33/11/11 IG
Chris C 49/23/15/11 GK+IG
Evan 48/33/10/5 GK
Chris L 43/33/3/7 Eldar
Brian H 41/21/13/7 Tyranids
Devin 41/25/7/9 CSM+Daemons
Neil W 38/33/0/5 Orks
Kevin 38/21/8/9 Tau
Aaron R 36/25/2/9
Chip 35/21/7/7 GK
Neil B 34/21/4/9 Orks
Craig 31/9/11/11 CSM+Daemons
Buff Bill 31/9/11/11 SM
Dilan 28/9/6/13

So I tied in overall points for 3rd, but they gave 3rd to Crimthaan since he had more battle points. I earned "Best Sport+Painting" which was equally cool for me. Overall I had 3 great games and won a cool award so I left with a smile.