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Hi all!
Two days ago I had my first battle with Eldar since 4th edition, and man have they changed! I really enjoyed playing as the Eldar in 4th edition but my army was small as I didn't have a lot of money inbetween also collecting CSM and Imperial Guard. Now that I have a good amount of money because of my work position, I'm more able to spend money on the Chosen ones!
So without further ado, my first practice game of the Nolvodalië versus the new Tyranids! Sure to be an exciting matchup.
Pictures are using vassal as alas my phone was dead.

THE ARMIES
Both armies are 1850 points
Craftword Nolvodalië
I should note that I am also open to suggestions for my list.

Eldar Powers:
Farseer: Misfortune, Guide, Prescience
Warlocks: Both got Conceal/Reveal

The Tyranids
This is only an approximate list, however I have a 90% confidence rating that it is correct. I do know that I missed a significant amount of biomorphs.


Tyranid Powers:
Hive Tyrant 1: Catalyst, Onslaught
Hive Tyrant 2: The Horror, Warp Blast

Farseer Fel-Galan sat emotionless meditating, knowing that the arrogance of his Craftworld and its displays of Vaul's masterworks had drawn many enemies, including the insatiable swam of the Tyranids. It would surely be a grave battle and although the Eldar would certainly beat back the horde, it would all be for naught. The Eldar of this Craftworld were few but mighty, and each one that fell in this battle would be one less to defend the Craftworld in the future.

THE GAME
The game's Deployment was Vanguard Strike, and the Mission was Emperor's Will. Night Fighting was Active for the First Turn. I won sides, and my opponent won the roll for Deployment and such decided to go first. I chose not to Seize the Initiative.

How the board looked at the very beginning of the game!



Note that the Lictor and his brood Infiltrated. He rolled a "3" for the He's After Me! and chose my Farseer, meaning that he was a paltry LD7 until the Deathleaper was killed! As such he was my first priority to kill.
Everything else was deployed fairly conservatively for me, and my opponent of course deployed very aggressively.

To be continued in the next post...

TURN 1

OPPONENT'S TURN 1
The Hive Mind had ordained that the Farseer must die, and from the biomass of Trantor it had wrought the horrible form of Deathleaper, an ancient and terrifying foe. Beside it was its force of Lictors, perfect assassination tools. The Farseer shuddered, as even its millennia of knowledge could not overcome the grotesque powers of the near-omnipotent Mind.

First turn, my opponent moved everything up and ran with everything that he could. Due to the Deathleaper Assassination rules, any Lictor coming within 12" would give me -1 LD! That definitely is impressive and since it was cumulative, I knew they had to die or my Psychic Powers wouldn't be going off any time soon. I was confused as to why my opponent neglected to fly up his Hive Tyrants but I remembered hearing that Synapse is bad news bears for the Tyranids this edition.

VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 1
So it had come to this. The bio-horrors had encroached upon the sacred ground of Trantor, a world of Nolvodalië's control. The foul beasts of the hive mind would surely pay for their transgressions. The Farseer revved his Jetbike and cried to his companions, "let thee fly the firepower of the Nolvodalië, and thy shall know that we shall triumph yet!"

In terms of Powers, I got off Guide on my Dire Avengers which would prove to be very useful (as you shall see!). Unfortunately, no other powers got cast.

So on my turn, I moved up everything and spread out, knowing full well that 3 Mawlocs were waiting in reserves.

Shooting: The shooting phase proved to be a fruitful one, but considering that all that was in range were Deathleaper and his cohorts, firepower was very concentrated. The Guided Dire Avengers managed to off Deathleaper with around 7 hits (After re-rolls, due to the Leaper only being hit on Snap shots) and did enough wounds to take the beast down. With First Blood and a major thorn in my side removed, I was definitely relieved. The rest of my army began concentrating on and eliminating the other lictors. Unfortunately due to Stealth and going to ground and the Area Terrain, I was only able to remove one or two more. The Blue one still had 1 wound left and it would come back to haunt me!

The End of the Turn:



TURN 2[/size]

OPPONENT'S TURN 2
All 3 Mawlocs come in, one of them hits a War Walker and only glances. I am informed that it comes back for another round and kills the war walker that was blocking its entry. I rolled two 1's for my Powerfield saves! Sucks but that's dice for you.
Two of the Spore Mine units come in (oh right, I just remembered that he had Spore Mines. I'll edit the OP with those in a sec)

Powers; I joke about him Perils'ing when he casts Catalyst and he does! I seriously must be a Psyker or something because this isn't the first time I've done something like that.
Movement; The Hive Tyrants fly up in range of the 3 Scatter Laser War Walkers.
Shooting; The 2 Hive Tyrants anally devastate my War Walkers. They put out a ton of Str6 shots. I immediately know that these guys have to go down or I'm going to have a tough battle on my hands!
Assault; The Blue Lictor charges forward and takes 1 wound from Overwatch but manages to win combat and sweep the Dire Avengers.
(In retrospect I realized that the Blue Lictor had already taken a wound from my notes on the First Turn; my opponent insisted that he hadn't. This would come back to haunt me again even after that.). The Hive Tyrant regenerates the wound it took from Perils

So although casualties had been minimal and I'd dealt a good blow to my enemy, losing a full strength squad of Dire Avengers really hurt.
Picture of end of his 2nd turn:


VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 2
Reserves; Well my luck actually turns and I managed to get in my 2 of 3 Dire Avenger units, my second Jetbike unit, and my Warp Spiders arrived straight on point behind the unit of Devilgants.
Powers; Now the Farseer is LD9 due to one Lictor within 12" and he manages to get off Prescience on the Wraithknight and Guide on the Bright Lance War Walkers. Misfortune fails to cast as I roll a 10! So close ;_;
Movement; I get into better shooting positions and prepare my attacks. I position my 2nd unit of Jetbikes to make a rear attack and possibly be used as bait against one of the Hive Tyrants to relieve pressure on the front of my army
Shooting; [i] This was another fruitful shooting phase. My Wraithknight ID's one of the Mawlocs (thank God) and another of the Mawlocs gets pared down to 3 wounds. The Warp Spiders never fail to disappoint and ravage one of the units of Gants, they would have killed them all but some were out of 12" range.

Pic of end of the 2nd turn:


TURN 3

OPPONENT'S TURN 3
Even without Synapse, all of my opponent's units manage to pass their Instinctive Behavior Checks! Pretty impressive.
[i]Reserves; Last unit of Spore Mines come on. Catalyst is successfully cast.
Movement; My gambit works and one of the Hive Tyrants starts to chase my unit of Jetbikes. The rest of his guys move forward and some of them start to chase the Warp Spiders!
Shooting; Shooting is largely uneventful, the upper Hive Tyrant manages to take out a few bikes however.
Assault; Many units charge in and overwatch is overall very unsuccessful. However the below Hive Tyrant fails to make an 8" charge against my lower Jetbikes which is lucky for me. Spore mInes assault the Rangers and manage to do 7 Str9 AP4 hits, destroying both the Rangers and the Quad Gun in one fell swoop.

VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 3
Reserves; Dire Avengers don't come in. The Farseer manages to cast Prescience on the Wraithknight and Misfortune on the Mawloc.
Movement; Starting moving units around more, knowing that being Defensive isn't going to help me win!
Shooting; The Warp Spiders fire a huge salvo of silly string and confetti and completely anally #WRECK the Haruspex. It vanishes in a crimson puff. The Bright Lance War Walkers manage to ground the Hive Tyrant and the Wraithknight takes off 2 more wounds, leaving his Warlord grounded and with only 1 wound left. Ouch!
Assault; My Wraithknight charges the Hive Tyrant and kills it, meaning that's one less thing I need to worry about. Alas, the Mawloc and the Farseer's unit stay locked in combat. This is a pathetic combat.

End of Turn 3:


I'm going to get something to eat, I'll finish this up in 30

Thanks for putting this up! Looking forward to the eventual Tyranid victory. Er, I mean, the -uh, seeing the rest of the turns posted

This battle report is both very clear and fun to read.
Another thing that is interesting is using some different lists.

I hope there are more reports like this one.

I'm baaaaack

TURN 4

OPPONENT'S TURN 4
Well, turns out that Instinctive Behavior actually happens! One of the Gant units Lurks, and one of the Mawlocs goes crazy and goes to attack the nearest unit; this being the War Walkers. (This actually ends up being good for him because I was planning on annihilating it with my War Walkers. I only had 2 left due to the Lictor that should have died earlier, but hey! gak happens)
Movement; Hive Tyrant vector strikes my Jetbikes and kills 2 of them, causing them to fall back!
Shooting; No meaningful shooting, the remaining Haruspex's tongue attack fails to damage the mighty WraithKnight.
Assault; The Mawloc charges the War Walkers. Unfortunately he only destroys one which means that it's completely safe from my ranged firepower. The Haruspex and Spire Mines charges the Wraithknight. Unfortunately the Wraithknight takes 2 wounds from the Spore Mines, meaning that it's at 3 now (it took 1 from the Hive Tyrant). And lthough the Wraithknight does several wounds to it, the Haruspex is Str8 Poisoned and does 2 wounds, meaning that it gains 2 wounds back. It wiffs with its additional attacks. Furthermore I am informed that the Haruspex is Concussive and my Wraithknight will be striking at I1 next turn...ouch!
The Warlock is killed versus the Mawloc and the Lictor challenges my Farseer and I accept. I do no wounds to it and take 1. Luckily I pass morale but it's only a LD7 check.

VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 4 (Aka "Things Fall Apart")
Reserves;Last unit of Dire Avengers come on! The Farseer gets Misfortune on the Mawloc and Prescience on the WK, but fails its other check. The Jetbikes fail to rally (I roll two 6's) and keep running.
Movement; I am positioning myself so that I can hopefully charge in a unit of Dire Avengers in order to give myself some more time and give my Farseer some rerolls in combat.
Shooting; Incredibly pitiful. I only killed one Gant due to his unit going to ground for a 2+ cover save because of Lurk giving Stealth.
Assault; Seriously terrible. I fail my charge with the Dire Avengers. The Wraithknight dies, my last Warwalker dies, I lose one more bike, but hey I do a wound to the black Lictor!

End of Turn 4:


TURN 5

OPPONENT'S TURN 5
Passes all of his IB tests (Again) and says his green Gants don't have to since they're GtG
Movement; He moves up everything to charge again
Shooting; His Hive Tyrant does a few wounds to my Warp Spiders and the Haruspex's tongue attack kills a dire avenger
Assault; The poverty assault continues as nothing happens with the Mawloc and the Jetbikes. The Haruspex charges and regains all of its wounds due to killing Dire Avengers. My Dire Avengers hold of course. His other Mawloc charges and murders my other Dire Avengers, forcing them to fall back off the board.

VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 5
Forgot to roll powers this turn but my rolling was so bad I would've perils'ed anyway! hahahaha
At least my Jetbikes rally
Movement; Well not too much due to all of my units being stuck in combat except for my Warp Spiders.
Shooting; The Warp Spiders at least manage to kill the one Mawloc so it's not *terrible* but things definitely aren't looking up for me.
Assault; Still complete poverty, both combats are draws as both sides fail to hit. The Mawloc Hits and Runs away from combat

End of Turn 5:


TURN 6 (This is the end, my beautiful friends...)

OPPONENT'S TURN 6
Movement and Shooting None to speak of! He holds position on the objective.
Assault Mawloc charges in and smashes and kills both my Farseer and the last Jetbike, the Haruspex combat is still completely lame as he kills one but I hold

VLADSIMPALER'S TURN 6
So here's the gambit: I turbo-boost my Jetbikes up to my Objective, resulting in a Tie rather than just a straight loss due to me having First Blood and Slay the Warlord and him having Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker.

Movement
I move the Warp Spiders, looking to somehow see if I can remove his guys from his Objective. It's a tricky one but let's see!

Shooting
I turbo boost my Jetbikes over to my Objective. Since they end in Difficult Terrain, I take a difficult terrain test. For one of them, I roll a . I then fail armor,and then roll, wait for it.... . They run off the board and the final score is:

Tyranids 5
Eldar 2

End of the game board:


Farseer Fel-Galan woke up from his meditation. Truly the Tyranids were strong and as strong as his craftworld was, they would not be able to overcome this menace. The runes of fate had foretold it. Perhaps the Tyranids could be diverted to another system, perhaps the Homo Rotundus guild worlds? It would be difficult to weave such a large change in time but it must be done.




And now, for my thoughts:
Well, I love the new Eldar. Battle Focus is fantastic and so cool to play around with. The pseudo-rending Bladestorm is fantastic and really helps break down anything with armor and big beasties. It was only my first game so I know I missed a lot of the more subtle tricks of the new Eldar but long story short, I know that they are going to be super fun to play around with and discover new combos.

The MVP's of the match are the Wraithknight and the Warp Spiders, by far. The Wraithknight is super tough and is a great offensive unit, I should have used it more as such. The Warp Spiders did some serious damage and were really great.

Really all that "failed" me were my rolls but it's a dice game so that is a moot point! And the game was enjoyable anyway, would love to hear comments, tips, and tricks for next time!

Thanks for reading and excited for your comments!

:edit: Thank you Macexor and SBG for your comments! More will be coming soon!

Great batrep, well written and perfectly understandable.

As for the changes:

cut both Warlocks, dump a unit of warwalkers and cut the Dire Avengers to 5

then go to something like this:

Farseer w/ jetbike 115
Warlock w/ jetbike 50

5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
6 Windriders w/ 2 Shuriken Cannon 122
3 Windriders w/ Shuriken Cannon 61
3 Windriders w/ Shuriken Cannon 61

10 Warpspiders 190

3 Warwalkers w/?? 210
1 Wraithknight stock 240
1 Wraithknight stock 240
1844

this would work quite well

I'm wondering about the s8 haruspex. It can only be s8 on the phase that it made a charge, and only if it has Adrenal Glands. Additionally, concussive is news to me - unless it's hidden in the Armourbane rule somewhere.

Anyone know for sure? I'm going to have to get my book out.

SBG wrote:
I'm wondering about the s8 haruspex. It can only be s8 on the phase that it made a charge, and only if it has Adrenal Glands. Additionally, concussive is news to me - unless it's hidden in the Armourbane rule somewhere.

Anyone know for sure? I'm going to have to get my book out.

Yep, he said that he had Adrenal Glands so he was Strength 8 on the charge which was nasty, plus rerolled hits from poison. That I understand but the Concussive makes no sense. I've been looking all over for tactics on the Haruspex and have seen nothing on it having Concussive. Hopefully there is some sort of wargear that gives it Concussive because otherwise my Wraithknight would have had a really good chance at winning the fight, being Prescienced and hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ versus a model with 3 wounds. Furthermore that definitely does seem odd because I thought it was always Strength 8...sounds like some trouble is brewing!

Also,

 Valek wrote:
Great batrep, well written and perfectly understandable.

As for the changes:

cut both Warlocks, dump a unit of warwalkers and cut the Dire Avengers to 5

then go to something like this:

Farseer w/ jetbike 115
Warlock w/ jetbike 50

5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
5 DA w/ Waveserpent & Scatter lasers 185
6 Windriders w/ 2 Shuriken Cannon 122
3 Windriders w/ Shuriken Cannon 61
3 Windriders w/ Shuriken Cannon 61

10 Warpspiders 190

3 Warwalkers w/?? 210
1 Wraithknight stock 240
1 Wraithknight stock 240
1844

this would work quite well

Thanks for the suggestions! I am personally wanting to do a more "foot" list so I'd like to not use Waveserpents. I blame Reecius and The Silmarillion for inspiring me to do Footdar, hahaha! The list is certainly mobile enough but I love everything else that you've suggested, with 2 Wraithknights I think I'll make the Warwalkers have Scatter Lasers again since my AT will be solid with 4 Str10 shots a turn. I bet that had I used your list I would have completely crushed the Tyranid player so I will test it out and see if I like it better than the foot list.
Thanks again!

Perhaps he mistook Hammer of Wrath for Concussive? That's the only thing I could see being confused.

Footdar is great fun to play. And can be exceptionally competitive.

If I was going for pure foot list, I'd probably do something cool like:

1850 Eldar:

HQ:

The Avatar: Fast Shot - 205

Farseer: Eldar Jetbike, Singing Spear, Mantle of the Laughing God - 160


Troops:

6 Rangers - 72

10 Dire Avengers - 130

10 Dire Avengers - 130

3 Windrider Jetbikes: Shuriken Cannon - 61


Elites:

8 Striking Scorpions: Exarch with Scorpion's Claw, Monster Hunter - 181


Fast Attack:

6 Swooping Hawks: Exarch - 106

10 Warp Spiders - 190


Heavy Support:

Wraithlord: BL/BL, Sword - 165

3 War Walkers: Scatterlasers - 210

Wraithknight - 240

This list wouldn't be easy to play, though. Not as easy as some others, anyway.

Really enjoyed reading that report! With video batreps it's always tiring for me to watch due to the massive moving of the camera and usually strange music, but this was well received!

Reminded me a lot of the battle reports in the White Dwarf, when it was still a hobby magazine. Oh how I loathed the so-called fancy battle reports with the pictures!

Looks like you had a great game! Please write up more batreps in this style!

Also, I thought the Haruspex healing only gave you back one wound per round...

I think he was playing a wishlist Haruspex.

Low_K wrote:Really enjoyed reading that report! With video batreps it's always tiring for me to watch due to the massive moving of the camera and usually strange music, but this was well received!

Reminded me a lot of the battle reports in the White Dwarf, when it was still a hobby magazine. Oh how I loathed the so-called fancy battle reports with the pictures!

Looks like you had a great game! Please write up more batreps in this style!

Thank you very much! Based on the great responses there will be much more to come in the future. Again, I appreciate your compliments and rest assured the style will remain the same.

AdeptSister wrote:Also, I thought the Haruspex healing only gave you back one wound per round...

N.I.B. wrote:I think he was playing a wishlist Haruspex.

Yeah I just looked at the book, I got taken advantage of (Which happens very rarely in this game). Based on what I've heard, looks like I should have won this game. Definitely good proof that you need to be on top of the rules! I won't make that mistake again.

Other then cheating, great report!

I like that you play footdar as apposed to serpents out of every pore.

Also maybe a Harlequin unit as gest star performance?

Also if you like a lot of foot guys, I recommend blobs of 20 guardians with platforms and a warlock.