Horrific Howling Banshee
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This is my first attempt at writing a battle report, so bear with me. Sorry I don't have any pictures. I thought about bringing my camera, but the problem is that my camera is a D-SLR. It takes nice pictures, but it's large-ish and expensive, so it's kind of inconvenient. I would spend the entire tournament worrying about keeping an eye on it.
Anyway, here's my report on an 1850-pt tournament at The Castle in Greensboro NC on Sunday 27 April. I've already learned my first lesson about tournament reports: write early. It's been a week and I'm going to have a hard time recalling details. The missions, I think, were the ones used at Adepticon.
My list:
HQ
Prince Yriel
Farseer with singing spear, jetbike, guide, doom
Elite
5 Fire dragons (Yriel joins this unit)
6 Fire dragons, 1 upgraded to an exarch with dbf, crack shot
6 Harlequins, all with kisses, 1 upgraded to a shadowseer
Troops
3 Guardian jetbikes, 1 with a shuriken cannon, plus 1 warlock with jetbike, spear, destructor
9 Dire avengers, 1 upgraded to an exarch with dual catapults, bladestorm
Transport for DA: Wave serpent w/ tl shuriken cannons, vectored engines, spirit stones
Fast attack
8 Warp spiders, 1 upgraded to an exarch with dual death spinners, powerblades, withdraw
Heavy support
Falcon with 2 shuriken cannons, holo-fields, vectored engines, spirit stones
Falcon as above
Falcon as above
Points total: 1850 exactly
Game one: Space Marines
Opponent list
Captain with lightning claws
5 or 6 Terminators with 1 assault cannon, 1 heavy flamer, 2 chainfists
Dreadnought with assault cannon, dread ccw
Dreadnought with tl lascannon, dread ccw
6? Scouts with sniper rifles
5 Tac marines with missile launcher, razorback with tl lascannon
10 Tac marines with missle launcher, veteran?
Land speeder tornado with multimelta
Land speeder typhoon
6? Devestators with 2 lascannons, 1 multimelta, 1 plasma cannon
Land raider w/ heavy bolter, tl lascannon sponsons
Vindicator
Mission
Quadrant deployment. One quadrant was a danger zone where models that moved took a chance of taking wounds or getting imobilized. Concealment, deep strike. Primary objective: hold table quarters, danger zone counts double. Secondary: hold a chosen terrain piece. Tertiary: take a solid victory. You receive one bonus point if your highest-cost HQ is still alive and one if your oppponent's highest cost HQ is dead.
The terrain on the board was pretty evenly spread out and provided decent cover, but I couldn't deploy everything out of LOS. To compensate, I deployed most of my army castled in the corner to stay far away from the enemy, in case I lost first turn. With concealment, the distance should protect my exposed falcons. As it happened, I won first turn and took it, just to get moving. My opponent had a lot of lascannons, so I figured he would be able to pull off a couple of shots. I swung my forces around into the unoccupied, non-dangerous quardant, getting a lot of stuff behind terrain. I don't think I did any shooting. On my opponent's turn, he repositioned a bit, but he didn't get any useful shots.
On my second turn, I advanced my forces to be positioned on one flank, ready for a 3rd turn deployments. On his turn he took a lot of shots that did nothing, but the vindicator killed some warp spiders (which I thought would happen), but also succeeded in scattering into the back of my serpent, glancing it and bringing it down (which I didn't think would happen). Most of my avengers died in the crash, and the entangled survivors desployed behind the wreck.
My third turn was pretty brutal. One fire dragon unit took down the land raider and the other got the vindicator. The threw his spear at a speeder but missed it. The farseer threw his spear at the other and brought it down. My harlequins went for the scouts, but they got such a great fleet roll that I switched targets and hit the devestators instead. The warp spiders and falcons shook/stunned the dreads, so I didn't see much return fire on my turn.
This was pretty much the end of the game. The marines killed off most of my dragons, but between the harlequins and Yriel, I was able to beat them down in close combat. The jetbikes eventually sacrificed themselves to the terminators in close combat in a failed attempt to keep them occupied during my turn, but my opponent rolled well and managed to kill all of them, despite my careful positioning to keep half the termies out of the combat. Then the termies immobilized a falcon, bleh.
I won the match and claimed the objectives with my two remaining falcons, but I definitely made some mistakes. I should have diverted a dragon squad to deal with the termies, but after deep striking they were so far away from everything else I thought I could handle them with just the pulse lasers from my falcons and two turns of shooting. Wrong. Ironically my opponent was new to the game, and I played considerably worse than normal because I was taking a lot of time to explain things.
Game two: Tau
Opponent list
Commander suit with plasma
12 Fire warriors with devilfish
12 Fire warriors with devilfish
12 Fire warriors with devilfish
8 Pathfinders with 3 rail rifles, devilfish
8 Pathfinders with 3 rail rifles, devilfish
Hammerhead with railgun
Hammerhead with railgun
Hammerhead with ion cannon
Mission
Table edge deployment. Primary objective: control the 12x72 lanes on the board. Secondary: eliminate your opponents' troop choices. Tertiary: solid victory. Bonus points as before.
Again, there was a reasonable amount of terrain, but not enough to get everything behind cover. Two of my falcons and my wave serpent were safely out of LOS, but the third falcon was partially visible. Because of this I deployed my Harlies next to the falcon instead of inside it. My opponent won the roll-off and took first turn, and was able to shoot at my exposed falcon with one of his railguns. He hit, he penetrated and I failed my obscured-target roll. Luckily he rolled a 1 on one of the damage dice, so I was shaken but mobile! Whew.
On my turn, I load up my harlies and begin advancing. His pathfinders are spread out in front of me, his railheads are to my left, and everything else is to my right. I swing left and shoot my pulse lasers at his railheads, stopping one from shooting.
On his second turn, my opponent uses his markerlights to avoid missing with anything and then glances a falcon with a railgun, stopping it from shooting. The devilfish shoot at the warp spiders and kills three. The ionhead kills another two, so the unit is under 1/2 strength, but I pass my morale test.
On my turn, I use my singing spears to glance a hammerhead, again stopping it from shooting. My dire avengers deploy out of the waveserpent into cover and eliminate the left-most pathfinder squad. The falcon with the full fire dragon squad moves 24", all the way on the left side of the board, next to a hammerhead. The other two falcons sit in the middle/left, cornering both hammerheads between them and my falcon on the left. The falcons themselves shoot at the second pathfinder unit, taking down a few. The warp spiders kill a few more.
On my opponent's third turn, he tries to run with his hammerheads, but I've got him on either side and he can't get away. One railhead can shoot, but he rolls badly and either misses or fails to glance. He deploys a lot of his fire warrior squads into cover on the right side of the board, but I'm not really sure why, as they had nothing to shoot at. The ionhead kills some bikes and they rest break, and the devilfish shoot at the spiders but do nothing.
The rest of the game is pretty brutal. My dragon squads each bring down a railhead on my third turn, eliminating my opponent's only real way to bring down my falcons. A pulse laser kills the Tau command, and my farseer has great luck bringing down devil fish with his singing spear. The avengers re-embark in the serpent and move into position to kill a fire warrior squad on the next turn, which they do. Yriel gets into close combat with the remaining pathfinders and kills them, and the harlequins get into combat with another fire warrior squad, killimg them. My opponent re-embarks his last fire warrior squad into a devilfish that I can't bring down in the time remaining, so he keeps me from obtaining the secondary objective. I get the primary, the tertiary and both bonus points.
Game three: Imperial Guard
Opponent list
Command unit with chimera, sentinel with lascannon
Many units of storm troopers with 2? plasma guns each, some units with chimeras
Hellhound
Basilisk
Lemun Russ exterminator
Lemun Russ demolisher
I don't get much of an opportunity to play against IG and I don't know the codex well, so there's a good chance I'm leaving things off.
Mission
Weird triangular deployment, escalation, random game length. Primary: hold counters. Secondary: have a scoring unit in your opponent's deployment zone. Third: solid victory. Bonus points as before.
The board had quite a bit of terrain, but almost none of it blocked LOS, so I was grateful for escalation, as it let me keep my skimmers off the board on turn 1. My opponent deployed the storm troopers without chimeras in cover, close to the front of his deployment zone. I deployed my dragons, harlies and Yriel toward the back, hoping to just keep them safe until the falcons arrived. I won the roll-off and let my opponent take the first turn since I felt relatively safe. He repositioned a bit on his first turn, and I did literally nothing on my first turn.
On my opponent's second turn, he got the sentinel, the basilisk and maybe something else. His reserve rolls weren't too good. Unfortunately the basilisk managed a shot at the 6-man fire dragon unit, got a direct hit and wounded 5 dragons. They were a little bunched so that they could all fit in the 4+ cover, but that turned out to be a poor choice on my part, as I proceeded to fail all five 4+ cover saves. My feeling of relative safety was deceptive! The sentinel shot its lascannon at the remaining dragon, and I failed that cover save too, so that was that.
In contrast to my opponent, my reserve rolls were great. I got everything and didn't even have to use my "master strategist" ability. The warp spiders came in on a flank and annihilated a storm trooper unit and then retreated in the assault phase. The avengers and bikes hid behind the one piece of large terrain in the middle of the board. One falcon picked up the harlies, one picked up Yriel, and one picked up the 5-man dragon unit. Their shooting immobilized the sentinel, stunning it in the process, and knocked the earthshaker cannon off the basilisk. A moral victory.
On my opponent's third turn, he got everything else. The demonlisher killed a couple warp spiders, but I was spread out, so casualties were minimized. Other than that his shooting was ineffectual; I think he shook a falcon. The hellhound got a shot off at the bikes and killed one, but I passed my morale test. On my turn I advanced the bikes, threw a singing spear at a chimera, immobilizing it, and then retreated into cover. The dire avengers deployed into cover and eliminated another storm trooper unit. The falcons took side shots at tanks, destroying one chimera. The warp spiders glanced the hellhound a few times from the front and shook it.
Things were looking grim for my opponent, and he accomplished virtually nothing on his fourth turn. He shot at my avengers with the demolisher cannon, but it fell wide. A few plasma shots bounced off my falcons and that was that. On my turn the warp spiders got behind the hellhound and destroyed it completely. Despite having AP- weapons, I find that warp spiders are fantastic vehicle killers because they have the mobility to get rear shots. Even falcons will often go down to a huge number of S6 shots against its AV10 rear. The jetbikes advanced on a storm trooper squad and toasted them with destructor. Yriel got into combat with another, and my dragons destroyed the exterminator, and the last storm trooper unit fell to the harlequins. In the last rounds I finished off the command unit, a remaining chimera and the demolisher. My opponent succeeded only in bringing down my wave serpent, but not until after I had deployed my avengers on one of the objectives.
Result: I got every battle point available.
I would like to say now that my opponent in this round was really commendable: he was a good player, but things did not go his way, and the mission, with its strange deployment and escalation, really favored a mobile force like mine. Still, he kept a good attitude throughout game and was a joy to play against. We laughed the entire time.
Conclusion
The tournament was a lot of fun, and I was happy to play only one space marine player. Terrain was rather uneven between boards, but it was better than at a lot of other tournaments I've played. I won best general, but I didn't win best overall. I think I probably lost in the painting scores, but the Tau player seemed a bit disgruntled about the way I cornered and killed his anti-tank units, so he may have dinged my sportsmanship score. Still, regardless of what he ranked me, I found all my opponents to be amiable and enjoyed all three games.
Although I didn't mention him much, my MVP was my farseer. Each turn he either cast guide on a falcon or doom on a unit about to suffer dire avenger shots. This in itself is quite valuable, but his singing spear shots are amazing. The ability to move in, shoot a S9 attack that hits on 2+, and then back up to where he can't be shot thanks to his IC status is just ridiculous. I don't think I've ever played a game where this guy failed to impress. I also had enormous success with my warp spiders. I love this unit and am surprised that I don't see it in more Eldar lists.
Maybe next time I will bring my camera and just keep it on my person so as not to have to worry about looking after it. I'd like to write more battle reports, and I know pictures help a lot. If you have any other suggestions about style I would be happy to hear them.
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