I came away from round one with 23 points, one shy of the maximum. If table assignments were any indication, six players finished with 23 or 24 points. I was on table four against Mech Eldar. I had never played against this list, but I had read about it.
Eldrad Ulthuan, 3 super falcons, a jet bike autarch, 3 shining spear squads, 2 10 man warp spider squads, 2 pathfinder squads, 2 harlequin squads, a fire dragon squad, and I forget what else. Very scary.
The mission forced both players to divide their list in half rounding down, with the smaller half in reserve. Players rolled off to place one 3" warp gate marker each. The markers had to be placed 22" from the long edges, at least 12" from a short edge, and at least 24 inches from each other. Players would start rolling reserves on turn one. All reserves must be placed within 12" of their warp gate only. Reserves could make a normal move after placement, but could not shoot or assault. Anything falling back did so toward their warp gate and were gone if they reached it.
I felt more comfortable with an open field, so I placed my terrain pieces on the short board edges. He placed two fair sized woods and a ruined building more centrally. Four pieces of terrain filled one corner, including two buildings, a wood and a hill. This left one end of the table bare of terrain for roughly 30 inches or so. I won the dice roll for gate placement and plunked mine down almost in the center of the board, offset slightly away from the bare end. This forced him to set his gate 12" from the bare end. I thought this might hurt him but his fast stuff had little or no problems.
The mission was victory points with an extra 1250 points per gate controlled.
He won the roll for strategy rating and took the edge with the terrain. I set up my destroyers, 2 immortal squads and my lord centered on my side between the gates. He set up 2 super falcons, Eldrad and pathfinder squad one in the jammed up terrain corner, and pathfinder squad two in the more central ruin.
I won the turn roll and went first. Out of 3 monoliths, 2 warrior squads and an immortal squad, only one warrior squad made it in. Thank C'tan I went first! My army pushed forward between the gates. I placed my warrior squad as close to the rest of my army as possible and managed to move to within 6" of my res orb. Fire was very limited as the only thing I had range to was pathfinders with a 2+ cover save. I might have got two of them. Not a good start.
His turn one was very good rolls, I believe he got in both shining spears, one warp spider squad and the autarch, who all duly boosted or teleported behind the building ruin with the pathfinders. He brought out his falcons, guided them with eldrad, then proceeded to shoot up one complete immortal squad and some of my destroyers ( pathfinders helped ). Yoiks!
Turn two I did well on WBB for destroyers, lousy for immortals. One monolith, the immortal squad and I believe the second warrior squad came through the warp gate. I placed the monolith, tank shocked a shining spear squad off the table, and teleported the immortals into the ruin with the pathfinders. One immortal stood up previously and was attached to the second immortal squad, so I ended up with one 9 man squad in the ruins.
Seeing how nasty the falcons were I glanced them into shaken status but could do no more. I fired the big immortal squad at the remaining shining spears I think, but only got one due to turbo boosting. My shooting was a lot less effective than I would like.
His turn two saw a falcon come on, the remaing shining spears, and I think the other warp spider squad. He took the shining spears into my left flank corner to split my fire. Fire dragons tried to take out the monolith with no luck. He then surrounded my immortal squad, shot and assaulted it dead. He also blasted one destroyer squad.
Turn three saw monolith two come in with one remaining. I placed it between the gates. 4 destroyers stood up after teleporting through the monolith and joined a five strong squad. Now I had a 9 destroyer squad! I tank shocked the second shining spear squad into the open and annhilated them with the ginormous destroyer squad. The remaining 4 man destroyer squad shot down 2 of 3 jetbikes in the corner, but the sole survivor didn't break.
My warriors rapid fired the fire dragons to death. The remaining 6 immortals fired at a warp spider squad and they broke. We both forgot about the fall back rules so they went back towards their edge. They failed to rally the next turn and I helped them along in turn five with a monolith within 6". I tried to put fire on the falcons but I had a lot of targets to take care of. Two falcons near my warp gate hadn't moved for a turn, but as they couldn't shoot I wasn't that worried. This wasn't very smart of me, but hey, first time against this army list...
His turn three he debarked two harlequin squads, moved, fleeted and assaulted two warrior squads, one with the lord, and the last immortal squad. He also piled in with the jetbike autarch. I got busted up pretty bad and lost the immortals but my warriors didn't break to his amazement and consternation. He had moved his falcons after debarking to block my fall back move and kill me, but thankfully I held fast. In fact I think I didn't fail a single morale check the whole game. The pathfinders were still plinking me, a warp spider squad was shooting at my destroyers, but the casualties were beginning to tell on the Eldar. They had nothing to stop my monoliths, but I knew the falcons had to die.
Turn four and I rolled one for my monolith so no help there. With the help of the res orb and two teleporting monoliths, I left the harlequins and the autarch to be flayed. I couldn't kill the autarch but the harlequin squads were reduced to 1 and 2 models who decided to hoof it. Destroyers hosed the remaining jetbike and the warp spiders, reducing them to three members, who held. I also managed to immobilize one falcon. I had two destroyer squads left, 2 warrior squads, 2 monoliths with one in reserve, and my lord. He had 2 pathfinder squads, three warp spiders, Eldrad, the autarch and 2 mobile falcons.
His turn four showed his clever strategy. He began tank shocking with his falcons, usually two units at a time to try and break my squads. Leadership ten don't fail me now! He had done it a few times earlier, but I didn't realize just how tough the falcons were to kill. I now knew that with the last turn and two moblie falcons he would be able to contest the gates and force the outcome on straight victory points. This would be a minor victory at best for me. As I noted before though, I never failed a break test and this frustrated him no end. Autarch assaulted one warrior squad and killed a couple, but no break. Warp spiders shot and assaulted the monster destroyer squad. He won but I still didn't break. He did very little damage with his remaining units and we went to five.
My last monolith finally came in on five and I placed it next to the gate. I had to teleport a unit of warriors away from the autarch who had assaulted the previous turn, so I sent them to the back corner with the remaining pathfinder squad. Destroyers teleported away from the warp spiders and consolidated around his gate along with the other destoyer squad. I rapid fired the warriors into the pathfinders and actually got em all. Destroyers got the remaining spiders and got a no shoot on one falcon.
His turn five was short. Movement phase he tried to tank shock my warriors and destroyers, again with no effect. This took his falcons well away from the gates. Just as we resolved the second tank shock, the judges way over at the results table hollered out "five minutes!". This was the first time warning I had heard. We both looked up a little surprised and asked the judge standing next to us if he heard five minutes as well. Since we weren't supposed to start another round unless we both could get a full turn in, my opponent just reached accross and shook my hand. We wrapped up his five but it made no difference. He had a thousand and change vp to my 4200 plus. I got all the bonus points and now had 47 out of a possible 48. Whoo-hoo! That's not the end of the story though.
We filled out the results sheet, turned them in and took the models off the board. He goes to the bathroom or something and comes back a few minutes later. "They just called 15 minute warning!" he tells me. Huh?
We actually heard the five minute warning for another tournament when we had about 25 minutes to go! I certainly felt for the other guy but the models were off the table and we called the game over. He wasn't that upset anyway as he knew he was out of the running regardless. There was some chance I could have grounded one or both falcons in my turn six as well. Fate seemed to be smiling, but I was beat down tired. I went to the mall food court with my buddy and got dinner, then prepared for the final round...
