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Wow, I've been playing much more than usual lately. Here's a link to my latest BatRep. Feel free to comment here or over there!

http://rumorsofheresy.blogspot.com/2014/01/depression-sets-in-4-battle-report-vs.html

Loved the report and both lists were great. Yours had more going for it, however, as you had a lot more durability and bodies than him. That's why I like balanced hybrid Eldar, with some mech and a lot of bikes/infantry, they work exceptionally well together because our AT and AI isn't confined to one or the other, it's rather evenly spread out throughout our units.

I think his biggest tactical blunder was exposing his War Walkers so early and so easily. I am often suprised that people who are otherwise good players and know their armies, have trouble using their WWs efficiently.

He also should have probably targeted your Warriors with his Hawks, he'd have killed the entire unit, full stop, while also getting rid of the biggest threat to his WK, other than your own WK. That way the Hawks would have been in your deployment zone, forcing you to divert your attention back or get hit again next turn. EDIT: Nvm, I just realised you reserved them(initially I mistook some of your Guardians as Warriors in the pics), which was a smart thing to do to keep them safe, but he still could have deep struck his Hawks better, I feel, if he did it in the top right of the table, just within 24" of your Guardians, then ran back behind cover with Battle-Focus.

But all in all, I really enjoyed reading the report and can't wait to read more!

P.S. I think the BeastStar is ready to take on any challenge, honestly don't see what you could do to improve it, while keeping with the theme. Perhaps finding 25 points and use 10 Guardians instead of 5 Dire Avengers, but that's nitpicking.

I was the player he played.

I exposed the War Walkers because I wanted him to charge them. Also, with then umber of shots they put out, I was banking on killing many more Beasts than I did. Throwing 3 straight 6+ Cover Saves doomed me and my chances of taking a bigger chunk of them out as Flocks were next in line behind the Master that made those saves. But, dice are a fickle thing and it is what it is. I threw Forewarning on them incase he shot them, they would have a better chance of living. I didn't think I would roll ridiculous and make 8/11 4++ on them from the Rends and live. Had they died, I feel pretty confident in the fact I could have severely hampered the Beasts. But, I did not and they began their roll of killing units. I honestly think that the Beasts not killing the Walkers cost me the game.

I agree about the Swooping Hawks. I honestly had never played them before. I should have put one on each side of the hill. I forgot to Battle Focus them and Adam said he would have let me, but I decided against it as I wanted to play it like a tournament. He smartly spread his Guardians out so I would have only gotten 2 with the blast. However, he grouped his Lances, Farseer, and 1 Guardian in that back ruin too closely and I could get 4 with the pack. I was at 24'' from them as I wanted the most models covered as possible.

Overall it was a great game and Adam was a top notch opponent as always. I know we will get another game in so he can practice for the LVO next week, and I will throw a nice tweak in my lists for him!

Hmm, I see the logic in that move. You were banking on alpha striking the beasts and feeding them a high threat unit to get them out in the open. I'd have perhaps been more defensive initially, moving stuff back then feeding him throwaway units he'd overkill on. Also, did you Battle-Focus the Walkers? They seemed pretty close to the BeastStar(within 18"?), but perhaps that's the only way WWs could see them? Anyway, I meant no offense, I just see people popularly dismissing WWs as glass cannons, when they can actually be pretty survivable with their mobility and JSJ ability.

Hawks are tricky to use. I love them now, but when I used them first time they were killed off in the very next shooting phase, having done nothing of note. You'll get the hang of them in a couple of games. They're top-notch harassment unit.

I had to Battle Focus to see around that bigass hill. I even Scouted them forward and I still couldn't see them. Battle Focus was the only way unfortunately. I had to not only move off to the side but also closer to see over the lip of the hill, it was a great placement on his part.

I could have definitely played them more defensively, but I wanted him to expose the Beasts and has them out in the open.

My lack of knowledge with them definitely showed and I knew that once I placed them. I usually play DE primary and my Ally fast attack slot is usually taken up with Spiders. To prevent a mirror-match I wanted to bring an Eldar list with units he might see at the LVO.

Araenion wrote:Loved the report and both lists were great. Yours had more going for it, however, as you had a lot more durability and bodies than him. That's why I like balanced hybrid Eldar, with some mech and a lot of bikes/infantry, they work exceptionally well together because our AT and AI isn't confined to one or the other, it's rather evenly spread out throughout our units.

I think his biggest tactical blunder was exposing his War Walkers so early and so easily. I am often suprised that people who are otherwise good players and know their armies, have trouble using their WWs efficiently.

He also should have probably targeted your Warriors with his Hawks, he'd have killed the entire unit, full stop, while also getting rid of the biggest threat to his WK, other than your own WK. That way the Hawks would have been in your deployment zone, forcing you to divert your attention back or get hit again next turn. EDIT: Nvm, I just realised you reserved them(initially I mistook some of your Guardians as Warriors in the pics), which was a smart thing to do to keep them safe, but he still could have deep struck his Hawks better, I feel, if he did it in the top right of the table, just within 24" of your Guardians, then ran back behind cover with Battle-Focus.

But all in all, I really enjoyed reading the report and can't wait to read more!

P.S. I think the BeastStar is ready to take on any challenge, honestly don't see what you could do to improve it, while keeping with the theme. Perhaps finding 25 points and use 10 Guardians instead of 5 Dire Avengers, but that's nitpicking.

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you liked the report!

I feel that Cody did make a couple mistakes in this game, though to be fair he was also not used to running this particular list - it takes a while to get the hang of using units you've never used before! While he deployed the Hawks a little bit wrong and also forgot to Battle Focus them, they still did a pretty nasty job against me. I actually think Cody may have been better-served to just keep the Hawks on the board until Turn 2, then counter-reserve me with the Hawks, killing off my Bikes or Warriors.

As he says below, it wasn't really a misstep on his part to get the Walkers close to my Beasts - he wanted me to charge him. I'm not 100% it was a good move - the Razorwings *should* only get 3 rends, and Baron + Khymerae + ShardSeer *should* only have combined to get 4 more results, leaving the Walkers mostly alive. That said, I believe that I also *should* have spaced a few of my Beasts farther back so they'd be unable to strike and potentially kill all the walkers in one turn. Kind of a gamble, which paid off for me, though I would have been better off to have executed it slightly differently.

SCP Yeeman wrote:I was the player he played.

I exposed the War Walkers because I wanted him to charge them. Also, with then umber of shots they put out, I was banking on killing many more Beasts than I did. Throwing 3 straight 6+ Cover Saves doomed me and my chances of taking a bigger chunk of them out as Flocks were next in line behind the Master that made those saves. But, dice are a fickle thing and it is what it is. I threw Forewarning on them incase he shot them, they would have a better chance of living. I didn't think I would roll ridiculous and make 8/11 4++ on them from the Rends and live. Had they died, I feel pretty confident in the fact I could have severely hampered the Beasts. But, I did not and they began their roll of killing units. I honestly think that the Beasts not killing the Walkers cost me the game.

I agree about the Swooping Hawks. I honestly had never played them before. I should have put one on each side of the hill. I forgot to Battle Focus them and Adam said he would have let me, but I decided against it as I wanted to play it like a tournament. He smartly spread his Guardians out so I would have only gotten 2 with the blast. However, he grouped his Lances, Farseer, and 1 Guardian in that back ruin too closely and I could get 4 with the pack. I was at 24'' from them as I wanted the most models covered as possible.

Overall it was a great game and Adam was a top notch opponent as always. I know we will get another game in so he can practice for the LVO next week, and I will throw a nice tweak in my lists for him!

HAHA, yeah with 6 Razorwings, I had 36 attacks, *should* have hit with 18, and only rended 3. Instead, I rended with 11! Funny how my "bad" luck and your "good" luck in rending/saving combined to have a bit of an averaging effect! That said, the dice were definitely more on my side this game than yours. I'll have to execute my charge on the Walkers a bit differently next time to ensure my maximum damage potential is reduced some - while it wasn't mathematically *super likely* that I would kill all the Walkers (with their 4++) in one round of combat, it was absolutely plausible. You're right that if I had managed to kill them all off in my turn, I would have been in trouble for the rest of the game. Guess I'm still learning the damage potential of the Beasts. :-/

It was a good move by you (and a dumb one on my part) to recognize my bunched-up Weapons and stuff. No sense in spreading out models if I leave lots of them clumped up like that! To be fair, I thought their hit was Barrage, which would have actually given me saves against your grenades, which I would have preferred, even if I lost some Lances in the process

As always, a very close, hard-fought game! I hope I can give you chance to redeem yourself before LVO

Araenion wrote:Hmm, I see the logic in that move. You were banking on alpha striking the beasts and feeding them a high threat unit to get them out in the open. I'd have perhaps been more defensive initially, moving stuff back then feeding him throwaway units he'd overkill on. Also, did you Battle-Focus the Walkers? They seemed pretty close to the BeastStar(within 18"?), but perhaps that's the only way WWs could see them? Anyway, I meant no offense, I just see people popularly dismissing WWs as glass cannons, when they can actually be pretty survivable with their mobility and JSJ ability.

Hawks are tricky to use. I love them now, but when I used them first time they were killed off in the very next shooting phase, having done nothing of note. You'll get the hang of them in a couple of games. They're top-notch harassment unit.

Yeah, Hawks are awesome. Like, just terrifying for my force.

War Walkers did need to Battle Focus in order to see more of my unit - they would have only killed a couple models otherwise!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

SCP Yeeman wrote:
I had to Battle Focus to see around that bigass hill. I even Scouted them forward and I still couldn't see them. Battle Focus was the only way unfortunately. I had to not only move off to the side but also closer to see over the lip of the hill, it was a great placement on his part.

I could have definitely played them more defensively, but I wanted him to expose the Beasts and has them out in the open.

My lack of knowledge with them definitely showed and I knew that once I placed them. I usually play DE primary and my Ally fast attack slot is usually taken up with Spiders. To prevent a mirror-match I wanted to bring an Eldar list with units he might see at the LVO.

We just posted at the same time, at least we answered the question the same way, HA

Well, like I said, I love both your armies. I play a hybrid Eldar list too, with a similar deathstar-ish unit: Shining Spears + tooled up Autarch(costs me 400 points and serves a lot of roles in the army, although it isn't nearly as survivable as the BeastStar, How much does that thing cost, once you factor in the Farseer and the Baron?) and I love the way it plays, especially how well the Spears synergize with the Knight.

One thing that's interesting is that both the WK and the Beasts(like the Shining Spears in my list) move at the same speed. The synergy here is that if you want to assault something nasty, you can charge in with your WK first, eating up Overwatch. Then you charge everything else in there. That's what I do and it helps immensely against units with powerful AI shooting. Could easily work with the BeastStar as well.

Farseer- 155
Baron- 105
Beasts- 258

Total: 518 of pure awesome.

With that second Seer he has, he almost guarantee the powers he wants. Its a nice set up and definitely can take on almost anything in the game.

Thanks for the report. I think the Beastpack combo with Eldar is under rated as it is not widely seen. In fact, because of such low points, I think it is a better buy than the Jetseer.

The Wraithknight combo with the Beastpack just as described above. Wraithknight absorbing overwatch fire is critically important in some cases (S6 shooting especially to avoid possibly losing Razorwings).

The beastpack combo isn't quite as good as the seer council, but for its price, it is excellent. The seer council, on the other hand, is just broken. While the beaststar is a pure hammer unit, the seer council is actually a force-multiplier unit, thus making the entire army better.

Another great game Adam. Good to see the elves doing well with anything other than venom-spam, serpent-spam or the beard council.

I've actually been to a few tournaments with Cody - the BAO, Golden Throne and the Contest of Champions. It's a shame we never got to play each other.