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Here’s the next instalment from the tournament on Sunday. The third round was once again kill points with a secondary objective of more kill points. Seriously. “Thinning the herd” gave you a point for every unit/squadron under half and 2 for those completely destroyed. I got paired against another Space Marine army at Table 1. His list was a Land Raider (standard LR) with Pedro and 5 TH/SS Termies inside, 2 squads of Marines with Razorbacks (both with Heavy Bolter), 2 Land Speeders in a squadron (both heavy flamer/Melta), and a squad of Tacticals with Melta/Multimelta/Combi-melta in a Drop Pod. This guy seemed like a good player and his list had some things I didn’t like. On the other hand his Marine squads were either foot-slogging or kill-point farms. He was really screwed by the two KP games in a row but still at the top table. That in itself said something about his abilities.
I got first again and deployed in a similar fashion to last game in a screen/drop pod deterrent (this one was Pitched battle but I stuck to my rightmost corner). The table had a huge Bastion on a hill on my left side and I decided that I would rather have him come at me across open ground and use the Bastion as a hidey-hole later. He deployed in a line across from me with Land Speeders behind LR and Tacticals behind their Razorbacks but not completely hidden. I was looking forward to a few turns of Prism templates on those poor fools.
Turn 1
He ceases the initiative! No biggy, considering his list and so I just shrug and sit down in my chair. The Drop Pod really shouldn’t have fed me points but he decides to risk it and it drops in front of my tanks. The Speeder rush forward at full speed and The rest move up 6”. His 2 melta shots miss and fail to penetrate my Serpent’s beautiful shield and he looks resigned. The LR also does nothing.
My turn one this game was the only time my Doomseer cast Doom the whole tournament. One Fire Dragon squad and both DA squads disembark to reap some kill points. The other Fire Dragon squad moves up and disembarks in an attempt to neuter his ability to move fast and catch my tanks. Many melta and Prism shots later both Land Speeder are still alive! The guy made 4 cover from Dragons and 3 more from Prisms. Wow. The Bladestorms of fury leave only one lonely marine Sergent alive who is promptly shot in the face with a missle. The Drop pod drops to the Dragons and the explosion does nothing. Another EML wrecks a speeder. One is all he needs…
Turn 2
The remaining speeder moves to wipe my naive Fire Dragons and the rest of the army moves up. The rest of the army moves up and 3 heavy bolters knock my second Fire Dragons squad to 2 and one DA squad to 7. The Land Speeder slays all the Dragons and his LR pops a Prism. This is by far his best round.
The now lonely Dragon Serpent (from now on this will be DS) hops over the Land Speeder and the rest of my troops embark and move left towards the bastion and away from the LR. Both Prisms bravely elect to stay behind in the corner to draw the LR that way. The Prisms combine a shot into a faraway slogging marine squad and leave 2 standing. The DS pops the last Land Speeder and then other two EML’s explode both Razorbacks. Like clockwork I roll 4 to hit, 5 to pen, 6 to damage each time. I now have the lead in KP’s and another squad down to 2. Time to avoid stuff again.
Turn 3
The Land Raider keeps rolling toward my force at 6” and pops another Prism. The remaining marines move forward towards the cover of the Bastion.
In my turn the Jetbikes that I forgot about last game come in far away and behind the bastion. The three Serpent on that end move completely behind the Bastion and the last Prism moves the other way. The DS is now at his table edge and behind the LR. A missle shoots down one of two marines in the damaged squad and the Prism kills 2 from the big one. Damn I needed that combined shot!
Turn 4
His turns are getting shorter. The remaining marines stay still and the Last remaining marine from the damaged squad kills a Jetbike with his heavy bolter. I exposed them stupidly and he almost made me pay for it dearly. The LR decides to forget about the fleeing serpents and fires on the last Prism only immobilizing it. The prism lives!!
All the Wave Serpents move around the Bastion for pot shots and the DS rejoins its brothers from the other direction. Damn I love the mobility of Mechdar. The downed Prism takes a defiant shot at the Land Raider and does nothing. It takes 3 EML’s but I finally down the last Marine from one squad for a kill point. The other EML fires a well-scattered small blast to hit 6 marines and wounds 4 (I think I may have Doomed here so the comment about the seer above is false. She still sucked.). Two marines die and I can’t remember if they were at half-strength or not.
Turn 5
My memory sort of fails me here and turns 4 and 5 are mashed together. In the end the last Prism ended up living and so did his remaining Marine squad. I think I didn’t make it around the building for turn 5 and we rolled a 1 so the game ended.
Result: Total Victory for Eldar
Thoughts: His army definitely wasn’t tailored to take on Mech. Not enough AT and a dependence on TH/SS terminators left him in my dust once the speeders finally died. Still, took it to the end and his LR got him a few kill points with solid Prism-popping until the last one had the audacity to not die. Once again I’m on top and will be returning to Table 1 for the fourth round. I definitely didn’t expect to do this well. I’ve been playing Mechdar for about 2 months and only have 5 games under my belt so I’m still learning as I go along. Luckily my opponents so far have been slower then me and with limited AT. Considering this is a tourney their lists were downright weak imo but they were both winner of one and two total victories respectively so still not pushover. This was all about to change…
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