Space Wolves w/ IG 1850

Rune Priest (prescience)
Logan Grimnar

4 Wolf Guard (Terminator armour, heavy flamer)
Drop Pod

Lone Wolf (TH/SS)

10 Grey Hunters (Plasma, combi-plasma, standard)
Drop Pod
10 Grey Hunters (Melta, combi-melta, wulfen)
Drop Pod

6 Long Fangs (2 Lascannon, 3 Missile)

Aegis Defence Line w/ Quad Gun

Commissar

Command Squad

IG blob (20)

3x Autocannon teams

MIssion:
Emperors Will, Vanguard, Night Fight turn 1, Eldar win first turn.

Psychic Powers

Prescience & Guide x2, Fortune, Doom, and a Divination power for Eldrad (re-roll psyker’s hits, wounds, saves).

Eldar Deploy
Castle in ruin in left corner, walkers forward on right, Wraithknight centre

IG Deploy
Blob up behind Aegis, Quad cannon central looking diagonally across middle of board at walkers, with Long Fangs manning it and Rune Priest attached. Fail to seize.

Eldar Turn 1
Prescience (Wraithknight every turn), Guide (both Walkers every turn), Fortune (Wraithknight every turn). Move into 36”of Long Fangs, obliterate all of them. Wraithknight doubles out an autocannon team with a nice failed cover save, their unit fails morale and runs off the board. I’ve only ever played with Strength 10 ranged weapons once before, and it was 24” artillery; this is much better. Walkers Battle Focus backwards.
IG Turn 1
Rune Priest joins an autocannon unit and mans the Quad gun. Lone Wolf moves up on the IG’s right flank. Logan’s terminator pod comes down on far left board edge, an inch away from the Dire Avenger, Guardian, Jetbike, Spider castle and barbecues 9 aspect warriors. Fortunately spread across two squads. Grey Hunters drop in and scatter backward, unloading into the Wraithknight for zero wounds. The rest of the army unloads into the Wraithknight for zero wounds, but some saves were caused. It was fortuned.

Eldar Turn 2
Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide, Fortune. Jetbikes, Guardians, Fire Dragons & a Farseer move up on Logan, Warp Spiders jump between the pods, Dire Avengers shuffle inside the castle, Wraithknight sits tight along with Walkers. Jetbikes put the final wounds on Logan and the terminators are wiped out from AP1 ninja star death. One walker unit annihilates the autocannon squad & Rune Priest, the other takes the Grey Hunters down to 1 model. Wraithknight and Spiders both unload into the Lone Wolf for one wound caused. Walkers tip toe backwards, Spiders zip forwards to run interference and set up for a Hit & Run into the backfield IG.

IG Turn 2
More Grey Hunters come down on the board edge next to the walkers, but they miss with one melta and the other gets saved by their Power Fields. Bolters strip a hull point. Lone Wolf & lone Grey Hunter come in for charge on Warp Spiders. Overwatch causes no damage, 2 spiders die. They hold, but fail Hit & Run on a 6.

Eldar Turn 3
Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide, Fortune. Wraithknight moves up and doubles out an autocannon team. One unit of walkers puts serious hurt on the Guard blob. Jetbikes move up for an objective grab next turn, with Farseer attached. Dire Avengers, Dragons, Guardians & a Walker unit turn the last Grey Hunter unit into juice. Any more wounds and there wouldn’t even be pulp. Walkers sneak sideways. Eldard charges the Lone Wolf, forgetting his staff is AP3 since the new codex. No wounds caused, Spiders choose not to Hit & Run.

IG Turn 3
Autocannons are few and ineffective at this point. Lone Wolf swings at Eldrad to no effect.

Eldar Turn 4
Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide, Fortune. Wraithknight jumps behind the Aegis and gets ready for a mon-keigh trampoline special, Walkers annihilate the blob, and the allies concede for a Cronewold Eldar victory.


MVP – in terms of damage output, the walkers hands down. Between them they killed the Long Fangs, Rune Priest, 3 autocannon teams, 20 guardsmen + Commissar, and about 15 Grey Hunters. Overall, however, MVP goes to the Wraithknight for creating a huge threat radius, drawing huge attention, dictating much of my opponent’s gameplay, and essentially forcing the concede. I am a fan.

Mechanized Wraithwing 1850

Farseer (Doom, Guide, Scrier’s Gaze)
Spiritseer (Invisibility, Conceal)

5 Wraithguard
Serpent w/ holos, lasers, cannon
5 Wraithguard
Serpent w/ holos, lasers, cannon
3 Windriders
3 Windriders w/ cannon
3 Windriders w/ cannon

Nightwing
Nightwing

Warp Hunter w/ spirit stones
Warp Hunter w/ spirit stones
Wraithknight


Big Guns Never Tire, Hammer & Anvil, No Night Fight

Mechdar choose side and place 3 objectives on that side, Footdar follow up with 2 behind area terrain. Footdar win first turn, and choose to take it.

Well, my footdar struggle with mech and with flyers, and this has plenty of both in a terrible mission & deployment matchup. If I got to place 3 objectives and castle up that would be nice, but no. Also those Warp Hunters are terrifying. Hopefully I can use the first 2 turns to blast the tanks down with my walkers, knight & dragons, then castle up and scoot for objectives. Having first turn is great.


Psychic Powers

I got Misfortune twice this game, but no Fortune or Doom, which was really tragic. In a vain attempt to get a better Runes of Fate power I did get Death Mission though, and I made it my goal to use it effectively somehow. Then I rolled my last power on Telepathy for fun, got Hallucination, but went for Psychic Shriek to try out on the Wraithknight.

Footdar Deploy
Castle up with my infantry in area terrain on my objectives, put my knight & walkers up front to get maximum range. Made some mistakes and forgot to infiltrate rangers, instead leaving them to outflank. Thought I could bring reserves in on long board edge, so left spiders in reserve. Turns out that’s wrong, so went for Deep Strike instead.

Mechdar Deploy
He lines up four tanks and knight on his board edge to deny range.

Footdar Turn 1

Prescience, Guide, Guide. Walkers move up and Battle Focus into range to Serpents & Hunters. I roll 22 hits with one squad, for one 6 to glance. I roll 20 hits for the other squads, and get nothing. Mensch! Knight jumps forward into some terrain, then turns one warp hunter into a joke with his deathcannons. Well that’s nice.

Mechdar Turn 1

Serpents, Knight, and Warp Hunter move slightly forward and blast the walkers for serious damage. Failed saves and a pie plate of S10 end one unit. If they had rolled two more 6s there would have been no pie plates! Also I forgot to use Eldrad’s Warlord stealth bubble which may have helped. I haven’t used it once yet. On the other side one walker is stunned, and in the back my wave serpent is destroyed. That is terrible. Meanwhile the enemy Knight rolls a 6 to wound my own, but I pass my 5+ cover save. Phew!

Footdar Turn 2

Not having my wave serpent battle-ready is a huge pain, as now my dragons are stranded and I can’t run troops across this huge board late game. Roll for reserves, hopefully my spiders can drop down and mulch some things. Nope, only all my troop units come in, and the rangers outflank on the wrong side. Oh well, Prescience, Guide, Guide. Wraithknight hops backwards at an angle (one inch too far to shoot the Warp Hunter– why did I do that?!). Walkers unload into the Farseer’s serpent on the left board edge, knocking it out. Better late than never? Wraithknight unloads some Instant Death into the other knight, but he passes his cover save in return. That would have been awesome.

Mechdar Turn 2

With Scrier’s Gaze, every reserve unit comes in – two Nightwings, two Jetbike units with cannons, and 5 Warp Spiders. Nice! Bad for me though. Nightwings obliterate the walkers and maybe damage something else to little effect. Spiders drop down and put shots into my Fire Dragons hiding in wreckage, but with a 3+ save now, only one dies. Warp Hunter moves up and drops a pie plate on the Knight but gets saved. Wave Serpent and jetbikes on right flank move up and kindly ask the rangers to please leave the premises. The rangers apologize and continue their Wandering elsewhere. The Mechdar are holding a strong position just out of range of everything but my Wraithknight, with almost all of their guns in range, while scoring three objectives. Hmm.

Footdar Turn 3

Spiders finally arrive, and drop right under the Nightwings on the left flank, 12” in front of the Farseer with Wraithguard, and about 7” from the board edge, but they don’t scatter. Guide the knight and dragons. Knight moves up and downs the Warp Hunter, ouch. Spiders think really hard about what to shoot, and end up going into the Wraithknight, causing 2 wounds, then they run the hell away. Dragons vaporize 4 spiders, but the loner holds. Guardians & Dires just out of range to shoot the spider. Farseer joins the jetbikes and they turbo onto the right flank – the plan is to survive one turn of shooting across 5 wounds (fingers crossed, I just wish I had rolled fortune earlier), and then the 1 wound Farseer would cast Death Mission and pound the three clumped jetbike units over the next three rounds. Double fingers crossed.

Mechdar Turn 3

Knight moves up on the Spiders, jetbikes & serpent move up on the turbo Farseer. Doom on my knight is denied. On the right flank, the jetseer dies from huge serpent shooting (rolled a 6 for the shield cannon) combined with Nightwing support, while in the middle the knight charges the Spiders, killing two. In the process he also takes two wounds from Overwatch! So now my knight is at 5 wounds to his 2, which is nice. But then my spiders fail their morale and run away! This is bad news. I was hoping to Hit & Run into the backfield and mulch some bikers next turn.

Footdar Turn 4

This is the last turn due to time, and we call it as such in advance, although it doesn’t change much for me. Guide on the Dire Avengers, Misfortune on the knight fails. Speaking of failure, my Warp Spiders roll boxcars and run away again. Such bad news. Avengers move up with Eldrad, while the Guardians and Dires in the castle shuffle to keep both objectives locked down. The Knight charges forward towards the closer objective in my opponent’s DZ – looks like he needs a 7 to get a charge off. In shooting, the Dire Avengers combined with a nice Psychic Shriek takes the life out of the enemy Wraithknight, while the Dragons force a Nightwing to jink. Then the Wraithknight ruins his reputation by rolling a double-one for charge distance.

Mechdar Turn 4

The game is pretty much in the bag now, sadly, so the Mechdar drop their wraithguard out and project warpholes all through my Wraithknight after a successful casting of Doom.

Given that there are no more turns, the Mechdar thus win 3 objectives to 2, with both Eldar armies losing all their heavy support, as well as retaining healthy Warlord’s. Footdar have First Blood, but lost Linebreaker, while Mechdar have Linebreaker.


Overall, this was always going to be an uphill battle for my limited-AT and anti-flyer list, and was tense in a very enjoyable way. If my walkers had roll on average, three of four tanks would have been knocked out turn one – but instead it was just one. Losing my jetseer was unfortunate but a predictable sacrifice, while failing that leadership check and the final charge attempt were both really unfortunate. All in all, a really great opponent and challenging tactical situation is what I enjoy about 40k, especially tournaments, and this was a fabulous game as each turn could have gone either way in places. It was also way more fun than playing flyer spam or leafblower lists.

Made me think hard about what I would change in the Footdar list to combat this situation, and reapers with an Icarus cannon sprang to mind. It might also be worth switching from two Avenger squads to two Guardian squads with brightlances, as BS4 and Battle Focus makes those Guardians pretty good now.

So MVP in this game is easily the Wraithknight, as he killed two of the three tanks I downed, and almost took out an objective to give me the win. Plus he almost ID’d the other Wraithknight, that was a scary moment. He could have done better, but the rest of my army did so much worse.


Tactics in Hindsight

Looking back I realized how I misplayed my army, and some things I should have changed. For starters, I should have deployed my rangers in my firebase for sure, alongside my guardians, then my avengers should have run up the table to create more targets, and kill the wraithguard and farseer when they popped out of their transport. Instead of going for objectives, I should have focused down the farseer unit and wiped out the left flank entirely by T4, which would have given me Warlord as well as First Blood and Linebreaker – giving us a tie on points. After everything was dead (so a farseer, wraithknight, and 5 wraithguard, maybe the flyers), I could move all of my units onto his closest objective at the same time for a T5 contest, giving me the victory even if he had Linebreaker.

Of course, this is just theoryhammer, and he easily could still have destroyed all of my pushing units. But my concentrating them and pushing at the same time, it’s much more likely at least one unit would get the contest.

Nurgle Daemons 1850

Great Unclean One (Iron Arm, yikes)

Plaguebearers
Plaguebearers

12 Fleshhounds
12 Fleshhounds
Plague Drones, I think 3

Flying Daemon Prince (extra toughness)
Flying Daemon Prince
Flying Daemon Prince (extra wound)

Of course we spent a long time working out what all the gifts and powers were, plus the big daemons were all tricked out, but I can’t really remember that stuff. On my end I love playing Daemons, they have to come to me and I can castle up then scoot around with warp jumps and Eldar trickery.

For this game I managed to get Guide, Prescience, Misfortune & Foreboding for Eldrad, then Guide, Prescience, and Forewarning for my Jetseer. Was really hoping for Doom against the big uglies, and joked about getting Death Mission for Eldrad as last-ditch line defense. But what can you do…

Kill points with Dawn of War, Night Fight Turn 1. Eldar win first turn.

Psychic Powers

Prescience & Guide, Misfortune, Forewarning (4++), Foreboding (full BS Overwatch)

Eldar Deploy

I castle up in a big ruin in the bottom right corner, keeping my knight central, and throwing some walkers around with redeploy to fake him out (to no effect for 3 games in a row…).

Daemons Deploy

GuO and bearers are dropping in, everything else starts right across from me on the right board edge. Actually I redeploy some walkers and avengers from the right over to the center which adds a bit more distance. And I infiltrate my rangers into his DZ.

Scout moves see the hounds tear forwards 12” of course. So glad he doesn’t seize.

Eldar Turn 1

Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide, Misfortune is Denied. Everything shuffles forwards to deny Shrouding or Stealth where possible, then backwards after shooting like the tricksy Eldar scum they are. Hounds are destroyed.

Daemons Turn 2

Big daemons fly right to the edge of my DZ, and have an 8” shroud-granting range for being Nurgle. Terrify makes my jetbikes run off the board while one Spider dies to Psychic Shriek (and Warp Jump, so down to 8).

Eldar Turn 2

Here we go, make or break right here. Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide, Foreboding & Forewarning on the Dire Avenger squad, and Misfortune on the T6 Prince. 7 powers a turn is a bit insane, plus I have a warp charge left for any perils or force weaponing I need thanks to Eldrad’s staff. Forgot you have to ground flying daemons before shooting them normally, but I’m glad I open up with Guardians. They fail to ground a Prince. The rangers shoot and fail to do anything. The Avengers open up, cause 1-2 wounds & ground a flying prince. The other Dire Avengers open up on another prince, failing to down him but causing a wound. Serpent shooting plinks away but doesn’t down him. The spiders follow up and bring him down, also causing a wound or two. With two of three princes downed, and one of them T5, I’m feeling pretty good about this. The Wraithknight brutally doubles out the T5 Prince. One unit of walkers does a number on the T6 Prince, although I forgot about misfortune, the Dragons also took a wound off. Finally the second walker unit unloads into the last prince, failing to down him but causing some wounds somehow. He has an extra wound and It Will Not Die though. Then my guardians and Dire Avengers bubble wrap my army.

Daemons Turn 2

GuO fails to come in, one unit of bearers mishaps and goes back to reserves, and the other fails to come in. The Drones charge up along with the Prince. They can’t get anyone but the 4++ full-BS, Prescienced Dire Avengers, so they charge them. The Drones charge first, look like they should make it, so I overwatch them for some wounds. But they fail. The Prince then charges in and gives two dires a haircut at neck level, but they find this hilarious and stick around.

Eldar Turn 3

4++ on the Knight, Prescience, Prescience, Guide, Guide. The Spiders zip forwards to centre field. The Drones evaporate in a pus cloud, the Spiders bounce and pop into his DZ. The Knight charges in and groin kicks the Prince for the win (S10 hammer of wrath doubles him out).

Overall a really great opponent and enjoyable time, but getting first turn was brutal as the two waves could be destroyed sequentially.

With bonus battle points I placed near the top of the final listing, and my round two Mechdar opponent ended up taking second place after a really hard-fought win over gunline IG.

As an Eldar player for 13 years, I really like the new book. It seems a bit silly that we don’t have a single Interceptor unit, not even a spell to do that, and that the Crimson Hunter can’t jink like a Nightwing, but our troops are almost OP now. Guardians? OP? No way! Considering they only cost 9 pts, having infantry-rending shots and then running away as well is ABSURD. Likewise with Avengers, only more so. I’m not a fan of the new Exarchs so much, but I tend to prefer my aspect warriors naked anyway. I mean, I tend not to buy unit upgrades unless its really necessary. Taking the Harlequins down a peg was a bit mean, as getting rid of guaranteed Fortune and Doom already takes some of the wind out of their sail. Random powers can be a huge pain, but getting access to a huge variety of powers is actually pretty awesome, and the psykers are cheap as chips. I’m not a huge fan of the massive models joining 40k now, but as far as they go the Wraithknight is a sick addition, and super Eldar in flavor.

The only thing that still irks me is the lack of beastly assault power that Eldar have always had. Sure, Harlequins still act like an insinkerator, Scorpions are nasty as hell, and the Avatar got faster and more attacks, but with the new vehicle rules and, most importantly, lack of guaranteed Fortune, none of these guys will last like they used to as a mainstay beatstick unit. But then again, Eldar probably prefer to kill mon-keigh with ranged weapons out of disrespect, not giving them the honour of a warrior’s death face-to-face. I can live with a fluffy rationale like that, and anyway, so far my Wraithknight has trolled through three armies like my Avatar never could, so there’s that.

Seeing the armies out at the tournament, I’m really glad not to have played against armour heavy gunline IG or flyer heavy lists of any kind. Will definitely have to retool my list for more mech and flyer destruction. Also after trying out the new Eldar rules I’m loving how effective and cheap 10 Guardians are, as well as multiple small jetbike and warp sider units. They aren’t huge threats on their own, but together they truly are a bladestorm that can threaten literally anything. Lances and monofilament for tanks, Bladestorm and monofilament for high save/MCs, volume of fire for infantry. Spiders can even lay down decent punishment in assault with their 3+ saves and mad mobility, meaning you can pick squishy units. Also it was clear how prevalent stealth and shrouding can be, making me feel like a single warlock with bike and spear could be a really useful purchase for the offensive buffs. You might roll a great ability like Renewer or Jinx, but you can always scoot up and remove Shrouding before unloading into a unit. Not super reliable, but the spear on a bike is great.

Eldrad
Farseer (Jetbike & singing spear)
Warlock (Jetbike & singing spear)

10 Guardians (Brightlance)
10 Guardians (Brightlance)
6 Windriders (2 Cannons)
3 Windriders (Cannon)
3 Windriders

6 Spiders
5 Spiders
5 Spiders
[Might go with 8-8 or 10-6)

Wraithknight
3 Walkers (lasers, one Holo-field)
5 Dark Reapers (Starshot; Exarch: EML, Fast Shot, Night Vision)

Icarus Cannon

TOTAL 1850

This list is far more mobile, with more high strength threats to vehicles and flyers, and the Reaper Exarch can man the Icarus for two S9, jink-ignoring, Interceptor Skyfire shots. 85 points is a bargain for that. Plus he can always unload with his EML and let Eldrad use it too. I love that Reapers can move and shoot this edition, so you can even deploy them out of line of sight first turn then move up while shooting at full BS.

On the MSU side, Eldar shooting is super effective with multiple units converging at once, as the jetbikes are twin-linked, and with 2 Prescience and 2 Guides being thrown around, you could still twin-link all of the heavy support units, plus a squad of spiders or guardians. That’s pretty insane for just two farseers.