BATREP Guard V DEldar: 750 miles to play 1750pts

He's quite scary in a purely EMO might cry on you kinda way...

I drove to Falkirk in Scotland for a job, I had an overnight and as serendipity would have it - it was the gaming night at the local GW store. Multi-win! I turned up with my 1750pts list and played against a very affable young ginger scot!

I was running my tournament list for blogwars, which may be up for some minor modifications post game...:

70 Command HQ with 3 Sniper Rifles and a flamer

105 Infantry HQ with 4 Grenade Launchers and a Chimera

255 3 x Lascannon equipped squads, plus a Commissar with power weapon

165 2 x Autocannon equipped squads plus a Commissar with power weapon

300 5 x Mortar Heavy Weapons Teams

155 Veterans with 3 x Melta and Chimera

85 Rough Riders x 8

150 Armoured Sentinels x 2 with lascannons and smokes

125 Devildog, Smoke, Heavy Flamer

125 Basilisk

215 Leman Russ Battle Tank, Lascannon and Pask

Total: 1750pts

The hansome young Scot called Scott (for want of his real name!) played DEldar and something along these lines:

Baron Samedi and 10 HobGoblins (where ARE the pumpkin bombs?)

Another 10 Hobgoblins

Another 10 Hobgoblins

Another 10 Hobgoblins

A band of 7 birdy things with 3 hobgoblin handlers

A jetbike squad of 5

Another Jetbike 'horde' of 8

3 Ravager (with the 3 darklances)

It was a very fluffy themed list with a wonderful look. It was also bloody fast.

It was a killpoint game with standard 12" deployment, he went first and deployed first.

I decided to get the whole lot on the board.

I stuck Pask, the Chimeltas, the GrenCommand and the Devildog in the centre and then twoblobs far left and far right. Six mortars hid behind Pask, while 2 more went far left and one and a Bassie went far right. The Command HQ went far left with the autocannons (and had very little influence because of this)...

First turn, he loses more guys to dangerous terrain than my shooting. Meanwhile he blows heavy flamers off all my tanks (boo) and immobilises the Chimeltas. Pask takes a drubbing, but fails to hurt anything in return. My mortars miss everything, but manage to mangle up a hobgoblin unit heading for my autocannon horde.

They hit Turn two (they are quite fast). Careful driving mean that the attacks are all thrown in close combat at tanks, with the beasties killing my Chimelta's ride and a hobgoblin horde on the right jumping the lascannons.

He suddenly discovers that charging my hordes is 'bad' as the commissar and dudes on the left lose 12 men to his charge, kill 5 and then shrug it off. He hits and runs rather than sticks. The Veterans and everyone else (including one mortar squad) denudes Baron von Munchhausen of his hobo's and kills all but one birdie swarm. The Basalisk fails to kill anything (again!), but the lascannon horde bite back and chew up their first Ravager.

The Autocannon horde run off and club some jet-bikers to death on mass and then rally to shoot down a surviving Hobgoblin denying a victory point. Pask takes turn after turn of nasty shooting, survives (although a turret destroyed result turns him from a Leman Russ to a Marder II tankhunter), the devildog also kills no-one both soaks up turn after turn of shots. The rough riders killed a single jetbiker.

Overall score 9-2 to me.

The DEldar were a deliciously fluffy list and great fun to fight. They weren't particularly dirty and paid the 'Tau' price once the scatter dice started hitting. That said, I rolled atrociously for the first half of the game and really felt on the back foot until the DEldar 'bounced'... If he'd come after my mortar teams though ... that's like 'free' blood tokens and then this 'easy win' would have been another matter.

Top night though, cheers GW Falkirk.

MiniAPOC - Battle Report, 4000pts

Squeezing a 4000pt doubles game into a Spearhead deployment is fun, but I was air-dropped in as a last minute replacement last night over at a friends house... no piccies I'm afraid - but dynamic dialogue anyhow!

Team Rhubarb - (me and MarkC, rolling with the Tau and the Space Marines)

Za Tau... baby!

• Shas'O with Air Fragmenty Boomgun, plasma and Missile Pod
• 2 squads of 2 Crisis suits, kitted up with largely missile pods, flamers and burst cannons. 2 plasma rifles and a Shas'O Air Frag Projector special. All with targetting arrays, All units have an escort of 2 gundrones.
• 5 Stealthers with 5 gundrones
• 4 x 9 Fire Warriors with a Sergeant each.
• Kroot Horde of 20 kroot and 10 kroot hounds.
• 5 Pathfinders with a Devilfish
• Piranha (say it like Darla from 'finding Nemo' for full effect) with Fusion (meltagun)Blaster
• 2 Broadsides with Targetters and 2 Shield Drones
• 2 SkyRays with Smart Missile Systems

All vehicles have Targetting Arrays (5pts), Disruption Pod (5pts) and Multitrackers (10pts)

Za Smurfs ... bluey?

• 2 Biker Scout Squads (5ish)
• 4 Biker Squads (5ish)
• 1 Command Biker Squad (7ish)
• 10 Assault Marines

Team Custard - Necrons and D-Eldar (played by Hutch and t'Mark, another Mark)

Neccies

• Destroyer Lord with Res Ord, Scythe and stuff (ok I never really saw him)
• 2 huge squads of Neccies (20)
• Unit of Destroyers (3)
• Immortals (5)
• Flayed Ones (10)
• Monolith with everything ...

D-Eldar

• 2 x AV11 multi darklance tanks (Ravagers?)
• 2 x Av10 transports (Raiders?)
• 6 Jetbikers
• 2 x D-Eldar Warrior Units
• 2 x large Evil Beast units, with warp beasts and razorwings
• Incubi unit with death weaponry
• Some mad-ass chosen dudes sporting S8 plasma guns, Eeeek!

Deployment

Table quarters and annihilation - Great! I set up my Tau behind a veritable wall of Smurf bikers. The pathfinders and the Broadsides get the high ground while the firewarriors sit in their transports and the SkyRays get their markerlights warmed up!

The Kroot horde infiltrate into the right flank building, filling all 4 stories with their smelly bodies, the Stealth team go out on the far left, deep behind enemy lines and looking to disrupt the enemies movement.

Game Highlights

First turn, They start, stealing initiative on a 4+! but Marks cunning scout move with his bikes mean that they can't get the shots and combat they want. They spend a frustrating turn killing a few Marine scouts and thanks to E-Eldar/Necron firepower (scary but VERY short ranged), I'm left unmarked.

Marks entire army races off into the wild blue yonder, intent on murder (hence I'm a little hazy on his army really). I focus on what I do best. 4 markerlights hit the Monolith, giving me a 2+ rerollable to hit and ignoring the 4+ cover save he should have. 2 shots later and the Broadsides have paid for themselves.

To follow up, the Pathfinder light up the AV11 Raider thingie and ping it with a couple of seeker missiles, only to fail. A Crisis Suit team does a duck and cover and blows it to bits with four missiles from the missile pods.

The Necron Swarms are looking threatening, until the Shas'O detachs and drops a S4 big blast causing 14 wounds into their midst! At the end of the shooting only 4 of 9 bases remain. Ignoring cover saves and dropping a template on swarms ... finger licking good! The Stealthers sneak forward and unleash serious firepower on a warbeast horde, but they only kill a couple. They retreat to the corner.

Marks Smurf Bikers make short work of the Beast Swarm on the right and consolidate towards the Necrons.

Turn 2: The Stealthers get charged by the Swarm of nine Scabbie thingies. 4 rounds of combat will result in a final ignoble death of the Stealthers ... ho hum. The Flayed ones flank and come in behind a SkyRay, stunning it. Nothing much else happens to my forces, so I wander off and make TEA.

The four unit scabbie swarmie thing I dlew up charges my fire warriors ... WS2, I2 S3 fightoff is embarressing in the extreme, but all the flapping hands goes his way, but my Shas'ui holds it together. He has many more attacks and 3 wounds each - and I have marginally better armour.

Ha, I'm back! Broadsides, all crisis suits, 9 firewarriors, 2 Smart Missile Systems, a Transport and the Smart Missile Systems on the Broadsides ALL target the Flayed ones and kill. 8 out of 10 (shouldn't that be cats?), ironically 8 out of 10 flayed ones WWB in my face - boo.

The Kroot make their first mighty move through cover roll and manage to throw 72 attacks at a 9 unit Necron horde. Cover save my ass - the Krooty muller them ... yeah! He takes 21 wounds after armour saves, and then gets kyboshed by the 21 fearless saving throws he has to take against the 2 remaining bases. The Shas'O has other problems, his move-fire-assault move jetpack thingie, back into cover kills all his gundrones ... must get new ones.

Mark's Bikers jump the D-Eldar Incubi and Lord and die tragically (but not without turning the Necron Lord into a tube of toothpaste using a powerfist - how graphic!), the rest of the bikers decide that eating Necron units is funny and get on with their job.

At this point the score is like "PURE WIN FOR THE MARINES AND TAU" - like 8-2.

Turn 3: Revenge of the Green Eyed Man/Robots...

Ok, looking good. But now we're in range and stuff gets nasty. First up, the beasts on the far left attack some bikes, but it turns out this is the command squad and its peachy. I couple of 'uber-marines' die and the beasts flee - but not far.

The D-Eldar also unleash S8 uber-plasma death on said command squad as the 'chosen' and Necron immortals in the centre get in on the game. The Destroyers blow up one of my devilfish - boo. The Flayers (all 8, fecking WBB rolls), charge the fire warriors and the warriors hold them (why can't these damned tau learn how to die properly), protecting the flayers.

They also shoot up my Piranha, which has been turbo-boosting a screen for the firewarriors on the left. Speaking of which, those FW's lose their combat to the scabs and run... ho hum.

5 incubi make a break for my pathfinders.

MY TURN! Broadsides target another AV11 Ravager (is that right?) and pop it open, S10 AP1 - yummy! The Markerlight sail into the Incubi and 2 seeker missiles make pulp of them. One is gutted by a Broadside shot (damn 1's) while 2 teams of crisis suits, a SkyRay SMS and the Shas'O manage to pulp the remaining Incubi.

The Kroot make another 'mighty' 6 inch MTC roll and assault a 6 man jetbike squad that's supporting the Flayed ones ... the Jetbikes get 1 attack each and kill 1 kroot. Unfortunately for them, 29 Kroot and kroot hounds then eat them. Mark's Assault marines valiantly come to the defence of the dying fire warriors as the devilfish moves away - denying a killpoint.

TURN 4: Last turn.

The D-Eldar and Necron have very little left. It all comes down to how much damage Marks command and other bikers have done in the DEldar and Necron backfield. Killing Destroyers and all sorts. The Terminators arrive and save the command squads, although catching those damned Beasts at I7 is tough work.

The Flayed Ones massacre the Assault Marines (eh?), I then 'bravely' charge my Kroot in, 84 attacks are stymied by the Flayed Ones 'SCARY FACE' roll. The Kroot fluff their Ld7 test and have to hit the neccies on a six. Not good, but doable. Awful rolling later and every save is passed. The Necrons kill 5 kroot in reply and suddenly I've got to roll a double 1 to not run ... with a sense of the inevitable the kroot are caught and massacred. Doh!

In any case, everybody attacked everybody else and the game ended with us winning by about 8 killpoints. The Broadsides were dependable and the SkyRays were just pure dirt against the D-Eldar.

Conclusion

Sometimes, going wappy with 4000pts on a 6' x 4' board just works. Tau are a great support army (like Guard) and work in great synergy with Space Marines and other 'attack' armies. In fact, for the most part we could play two separate games. On reflection, the Kroot were on for being 'man of the match', before being pipped by a unit of 10 lowly flanking slayers. Who killed a firewarrior squad, 28 kroot and an assault marines squad and managed more killpoints against me than the rest of two entire 2000 pt armies... (but mainly because I had a lot of bikes to hide behind).

Feed me back if you likey? Yes...?

2000pts CSM v Dark Eldar

Anton's new paint scheme ... loverley!

My now ubiquitous list of deep striking nasties versus a surprise entry from Anton - he'd succumbed to the 'other' dark side and brought along soul eating death elves for tea! I'm not entirely sure of the validity of attacking a 'largely' slanneshi army with your death elves - but clearly there was a logic somewhere (Rick Priestly's head) so there you go!

Swords of Alpharius: I decided to leave the Mark of Slannesh on the Terminators at home and bring an additional lesser Deamon, allowing me to field two squads of 5 Deamons.

• HQ: Huron Blackheart [170]
• HQ: Chaos Sorcerer - Terminator Armour, Lash of Submission, Combi weapon (plasma) [130]
• Elites: 5 Chosen - Chump w. PF, 4 meltaguns, icon [175]
• Elites: 5 Terminators - 2 Chumps with Lighting Claws, Chainfist and Combi-melta, PF and Heavy Flamer, PF and combi-flamer, Mark of Slaanesh [265]
• Elites: Dreadnought - Plasma Cannon and Heavy Flamer [110]
• Troops: 9 Alpha Marines: Icon, Flamer, Rhino [185]
• Troops: 9 Alpha Marines: Icon, Flamer, Rhino [185]
• Troops: 7 Plague Marines: Icon, Chump with PF, 2 Plasmaguns, Rhino [271]
• Troops: 5 Lesser Deamons [65]
• Troops: 5 Lesser Deamons [65]
• Fast Attack: 5 Raptors with Icon and 2 meltaguns [130]
• Heavy Support: Greater Deamon [100]
• Heavy Support: 2 Obilterators [150]

Total 2001

Dark Elves with Splinter guns: this was an intro to the Dark Elves, so I was intrigued and a little bemused by the bunch of them...

• Archon carrying nasty stuff with four incubi carrying nasty power glaves in a Venom
• Lelith (accompanying the Wytches).
• 5 incubi in a Venom
• 10 Warriors in a Raider
• 10 Warriors in a Raider
• 10 Wytches in a Raider
• 3 Reavers
• 3 Reavers
• 3 Reavers
• 2 Talos Pain Engines (left at home)

And that's about all I can tell you, they had some nasty guns ... but luck favoured the brave (or the ignorant over the inexperienced in this case).

The Deployment was Spearhead (which suited me fine) with the objective was seize ground (4 markers). These were spread out fairly evenly.

TURN 1: The Reavers and right hand side shot forwards, attempting to kill my Chosen which were deployed way out on the left flank in their deployment zone. The range was perfect, and although they managed to kill one raptor with Raider fire, they didn't get into close combat with my Chosen. The Reavers and Raiders made a main push down the right flank, targetting my Rhino's and Dreadnought with fire. Many shots later nothing had happened.

In return I went to work. The reserves rolls were VERY pleasent, giving me the greater Deamon, a squad of lesser deamons, and the Terminators. Huron and his Chaosmarines stayed away, as did an 'ace in the hole' Deamon unit.

The Terminators and little deamons (Li-mons?) bounced off the Chosen's ICON. Allowing them to position themselves perfectly. A quick LASH later and I could unleash multiple Heavy and Flamer shots on the bunched up Dark Eldar while 'shooting' at the Reavers behind them. The massacre was complete and no Eldar survived. Three of the chosens Meltaguns then barked at 12" and demonstrated that 1D6 + 8 is more than enough against a AP10 vehicle, and the doom of open topped reared it's head, at +2 on the chart the vehicle was doomed.

So the left flank was secure, but what of the right? Well the obliterators went to work on the Raiders and Venoms, although I failed to destroy a single vehicle, I did manage to roll lots of ones, which automatically went to 2 - which stalled the entire advance of the dark Eldar.

Three Reavers also flew like blazes behind my Rhino and Dreadnought on the right flank. They were met by the Greater Deamon (Gri-mon) who killed the PlagueMarine Chump (there's got to be a cheaper way!) and 4 Raptors. The Grater Deamon killed all the Reavers, while the Reavers killed a Raptor.

TURN 2 : Without being able to move or fire, and being too far away to jump out and charge ... the Eldar were left with limited shots and limited options. The non immobile Incubi raced after the marine squad in the centre (going after a central objective), jumped out and charged the rhino. At this point we realise that although Incubi have AWESOME power weapon death - they are fairly useless at using their standard issue tin openers. Even with autohit (the rhino had gone and immobilised itself) they had no dice.

In return I continued to pin the other vehicles while Huron and his squad plowed into the back of the rearmost Raider and the Terminators and Chosen realigned. Now was my time for an 'accident' as the flamer from my squad proved to only kill one Incubi. I Lashed them closer to the terminators, but Only had a few bolter shots to throw (combi-plasma on the Sorceror is useless if you're lashing every turn ... but is lash a shooting spell?) Down to three incubi, I charged in the Lesser Deamons (bouncing off the chaosmarine ICON) and met with an abject fail. Lesser Deamons suck in close combat! Against warriors yes, incubi - NO!

Huron and his squad come on from the back and manage to complete fail to wreck the Raider, although they do immobilise it.

At this stage, Anton's killed one raptor, and I've killed two (one through possession and one plaguemarine through a plasma overheat!) ... so I'm kinda winning on all fronts.

TURN 3: Anton manages to get both Incubi into combat. The first incubi group manage to charge my terminators and KILL ALL OF THEM. I5, S5 and power weapons ... hang on, thats a rough rider! They then rout the Sorceror and kill him. The Archon also discovers that haywire grenades only give ONE attack - which fails to pop my rhino.

At the back, Hurons less lucky. He manages quite well to survive a charge from Lelith. With only three attacks and S3, she only manages one wound. However Huron fails to land a punch (thanks to him NOT casting warptime). He loses all but three marines to Wytches and Warrior fire from the downed unit. However he ties up the wytches for a turn and with the warriors holding one objective, it all comes down to nullifying Anton's contestors!

The Chosen step up first of all and shoot down the Incubi with vastly overpowered meltagun shots (good job as they had a 2+ save, FNP and furious charge by this stage!). Meanwhile the last Reavers are attempting to contest my home objective (they would have been wiser to challenge my Lesser Deamon and Chosen held one!) ... and they get eaten by the Greater Deamon. The Dreadnought steps up and manages to kill 4 Incubi with a plasmacannon shot at point blank and kill the Venom with a heavy flamer shot. He then tries to punk the Archon, scores 5 instantkill hits to which the Archon rolls 5/5 2+ saves... doh!

The Raptors target the remaining Venom and kill it dead while the Oblits target the mobile Raider and stun it. The marines in the centre dive out of their tank to claim the central objective. Huron dies, but with only one objective in DE hands, and only the Archon able to contest my home objective, it's all over for the DE.

Final Score 2-1 to the marines.

CONCLUSIONS

The DE are a really fun army to play and play against. The biggest weakness is their AV10 vehicles, as despite their speed and their cover saves, their combination of AV10 and open topped meant that stopping them from moving AND firing and effectively nerfing the DE charge was too easy.

The Incubi in Venoms were nasty, but the DE really lack in close attack weapons which can crack open vehicles. Haywire grenades are not enough really. Overall, Anton's army lacked enough firepower to crack open three rhinos, and he couldn't even crack them open when stationary in close combat. Definite rethink needed there! Incubi are not something to attack in close combat, and the only proper solution is to shoot them down... at T3 and 3+ save - there are plenty of options there. I think Incubi are awesome against marines ... but against guardsmen, one battlecannon shot is all it takes.

Overall, Anton needs to work on his timing. His reavers are standard Saim Hann and cannon fodder to decent marine units. Against Guardsmen, those D6 S6 flail attacks will signal the end of many a Heavy weapon team and would be useful against Tyranid MC's. However they cannot take fire and should have danced at a distance instead of coming in close. The tricky thing with the DE is getting it all to hit at about the same time. It's very very easy to delay those AV10 skimmers ... and then mob the ones that do get through with flamers, terminators and other death weapons.

Overall I think this was a demonstration of how familiarity breeds effectiveness. The reserves rolls for me were perfect, allowing me to fully exploit the 'tempt and ambush' aspects of my army. Anton's DE were the perfect example as he was a little too keen to take the bait (as he was thinking about FNP bonuses through power through pain) ... as such I was able to take his army down piecemeal without the DE able to really threaten my core force. Ironically, this was exactly what he should have been doing to me.

If he'd held back and gone for an objective grab, he would have forced my 'ambush' units to deploy without a target, holding objectives... he could then have gone in at speed with all force. Using all three reaver units on the same squad (3D6 S6 hits) and followed up with incubi and wytches. HE could have had me so easily...

At the end of the game I'd lost 2 raptors, 5 terminators and the Sorceror, 5 Le-mons, 9 Marines and Huron. He'd lost a warrior squad, 2 venoms, 2 incubi units, lost all three Reavers units and lost a raider and had an immobile Raider.