Back from the monthly tournament event again.
I got sick of facing Null Zone with my daemons, so I brought my Eldar in December, with a heavily mechanized theme.
I tried to stuff as many skimmer in as possible, so I have almost no upgrades anywhere in the army;
HQ: Autarch
Elite: 5 Fire Dragons in Scatter Laser Serpent
Elite: 5 Fire Dragons in Scatter Laser Serpent
Elite: 5 Scorpions, w/ Powerclaw Shadowstriking Exarch
Troops: 5 Dire Avengers in Scatter Laser Serpent
Troops: 5 Dire Avengers in Brightlance Serpent
Troops: 5 Dire Avengers in Brightlance Serpent
Heavy: Fire Prism
Heavy: Fire Prism
Heavy: Fire Prism
My plan was to reserve everything, outflanking the scorpions to handle backfield threats like
ML devs, and dance around before tankshocking/running for objectives.
Didn't quite work out that way.
Round One
I get to play against, "John's 'Fabulous' Guard" (That's what his army list said).
John hasn't played much in 5th edition, and these may have been his first games with the new guard codex, I had to help with some of the rules.
Even still, it ended up being a tough game to get points in.
Objectives:
Kill Points, score 250+
VP, Kill all opponent's troops.
John's list:
Company Command, in Carapace Armor, Master of Ordinance.
Platoon One:
Junior Officer w/ plasma pistol
5x Infantry Squad w/ plasma gun, sgt w/ melta bomb
Heavy Weapon Squad w/ autocannon, heavy bolter
Platoon Two:
Junior Officer w/ plasma pistol
5x Infantry Squad w/ plasma gun
Heavy Weapon Squad w/ autocannon, heavy bolter
Sentinel Squadron: 3 lascannon sentinels
Ordinance Battery: 3 Basilisks
He opts to blob-squad platoon two, leaving platoon one as individual squads - this decision alone probably cost him the game - blob squadding both would have made this much harder.
He deploys the basilisks in the left corner, surrounded with the blobbed squad. The sentinels go in the middle, and the other platoon on the right side.
I figure the easiest way to get kill points is to go after the sentinels and individual guard squads. Unfortunately, that means that I'm pretty much leaving the basilisks alone, and they score a few good kills over the course of the game. The scorpions outflanked to the left, and were unable to make a combi-charge against two squads, so they accounted for one squad before being shot to bits.
At game's end, he'd killed the scorpions, the two units of fire dragons and a fire prism (4
KP) and had immobilized two serpents, while I'd killed the entire broken up platoon, all the sentinels, and a heavy weapon team, giving me both primary and secondary objectives. I was unable to knock out the blob-squad though, so I missed the tertiary.
Round Two
With the annihilation mission out of the way (I figure that's the worst for this army), we move on to round two. I get to play Robert's marines. If you read my report from the October event, I played Robert's marine in that game too.
Mission:
Table Quarters (can be claimed by any non-vehicle unit, can only be contested by units that could claim - a unit spread between more than one quarter is rolled for randomly to decide which it counts as), Score 500 more
VP, Kill all opponent
HQ choices.
Robert's Marines:
Master of the Forge w/ Conversion Beamer
5 Scouts w/ Camo Cloaks, snipers, 1
ML
2x Tacs in Rhino, 1 Combat Squad w/ Multimelta, 1 Combat Squad w/ flamer, Sgt w/ combi-flamer
3x Dread w/ multi-melta
2x Speeder Squad w/
MM/
HF
3x Predator w/ Autocannon,
HB Sponsons.
I reserve everything again. He spends his first two turns shuffling and then pops smoke on all his lead vehicles that can - speeders moved fast for a save too.
I come on, with most of my forces - I think one Dire Avenger transport and one Prism stayed home. Scorpions outflanked to the wrong side, with nothing much to do. - There's a rhino with a flamer combat squad inside, but that's not much. Shooting kills a predator and a gun off a multi-melta.
We trade punches for a few turns. He immobilizes a couple of my transports, and kills all my elite warriors but I kill most of his guns in the process (all dreads, speeders and predators accounted for). With his Master of the Force hanging with the scouts, with camo cloaks, in a reinforced building, there's not even much point shooting at them. I try to take some potshots at his guys, and at the end of the game, I tank shock his guys as much as I can to force them back into contested quarters.
But, then we get to the roll-off for which unit counts as being in which quarter. Each quarter ends up being worth 'points' (your home quarter is worth 1, the two initially uncontrolled ones are worth two, and your opponent's is worth three. I've got 'my' quarter, with the tank shocks to keep him out. I've also contested his. He's got three straddling units, and after the rolls, he ends up claiming one of the initially uncontested, so wins the primary 2 points to 1.
I've got the secondary, with more than 500
KP. Neither of our
HQs died though.
I really disliked this mission. I felt that it was a poor attempt to mesh a 4th ed cleanse with 5th ed rules. 5th ed is designed around the idea that objectives can be contested by any unit and losing that ability, with the army I brought, didn't work so well for me. I brought an army designed to play in 5th edition. Had we used 5th edition scoring rules, I would have won the game 1 objective to 0. As it was, I didn't have enough scoring units to contest all the quarters, especially with the random determination for straddling units (meaning, if I knew which quarter his guys would count as being in, I would have been able to put my guys in the place to contest that quarter. But, I can only contest one of them, and don't know which it will end up being)
Oh well, moving on...
Round 3
This one is more of the classic objective grab that my army is designed to play in.
Primary: Claim objectives, 4 of them
Secondary, score more than 750 victory points
Tertiary, kill one enemy unit of your choice that is 'marked for death'
I figure I can do this, until I get matched up against the one army present that can do it better :(
Dark Eldar:
Dracon w/ bodyguard w/ 2 dark lances
two units of wyches in Raiders, w/ 2 blasters, succubus
six units of warriors in Raiders, each with Dark Lance/Blaster
3 Ravagers w/ 3 disintegrators.
So, he's got 11 ships to my 8. He's got 16 darklances, 9 disintegrators, and 10 blasters that can all hit my ships, to my 8 (vehicle mounted) and units (fire dragons seem like overkill here). And, killing his raiders, while easier, doesn't drastically reduce his firepower, whereas each of my ships downed does drastically reduce mine.
It's dawn of war, he deploys everything, i reserve everything, figuring I'll at least hit first, and without night fighting. He zooms for cover saves, and I whiff my first set of reserve rolls - even with the autarch, I bring in three skimmers, and the scorpions.
Predictably, things go downhill. He makes all his cover saves against my shooting, and my scorpions, with their 20 attacks, fail to hit the raider they're in range to hit. I lose everything that had shown up to his shooting phase.
The next turn is a bit better. I focus fire on the unit I marked for death, just to get some points for the match, and kill a few skimmers. He, predictably kills, or shakes, everything that remains. I get my last stuff, and end up resorting to ramming his ships when my guns are down. Pretty pointless really though, as he kills everything.
I got the 10 points for the tertiary though.
Results
I end up with the best appearance award again, proving that it's okay to die as long as you look good doing it.
Thoughts on the army:
Well, I finished middle of the pack. I felt that the army did okay in the first two games - I was pretty much in control throughout the games, although I didn't have the punch to get massacres. As noted above, I felt that the second mission was poorly designed and ignored the conventions of 5th ed, conventions that I designed my army for, so that cost me a few points too. Round three - well that's just one of those matchups that you know you can't win. You're simply outgunned in just the right way, and it didn't help that my army trickled in piecemeal either. Still, at the end of the day, it wasn't enough to win the tournament, so maybe I'll try orks next month.
