1500pt July Tournament Game #2

This Battle Report comes from the second game of the July Millennium tournament – held the second Saturday of each month.  Andy and I both scored near max points in the first round. I knew going into it, it was going to be a tough game.  Andy’s army was fast and durable. Andy also been playing against Eldar since the codex came out, so there was not pulling the wool over his eyes. He knew the rules tricks of new codex and the overall capability of all my units.

 

My list

Farseer

on Jetbike and Spirit Stone of Anathlan and Singing Spear

Autarch

on bike with Banshee Mask, Fusion Gun and Shard of Anaris

Warlock on bike and singing spear

5 Wraithguard-160 pts

In Wave Serpent with Scatter Laser and Holofield-135 pts

6 Rangers

10 Dire avengers 130 pts

In Wave Serpent with Scatter Laser and Holofield-135 pts

9 Windrider Jetbike Squad

5 Warp Spiders

Fire Prims with Holofield 15 pts.

War Walker Squadron with Bright Lance and Scatter

Andy’s list.

Captain on bike, Artificer Armor and Relic Blade

5 SM Bikes

5 SM Bikes

10 Tactical Marines

10 Assault Terminators

Storm Talon

Dreadnought in Drop Pod

Deployment

In this mission there were five objectives.  Andy won the roll for sides and he placed objectives first.  He put three objectives in his deployment zone.  Andy knew I had no rock hard assault units and he would win in hand to hand if came close to him.  There was an impassable building almost in the center of board, but a lot of terrain on the table was basic 5 up cover – which really netted neither of us a significant advantage.

Andy won the roll to choose deployment and chose to go first.  I am thinking he wanted his reserves to come in quicker and to do some damage before my tanks starting moving and I could cast psychic powers.  I chose not to seize.  I wanted the last turn to claim/contest objectives.  He deployed his Termintors centrally and as close to me as possible.  His two bike squads were deployed behind the Terminators.  The tactical marine squad was in the woods sitting on an objective.

 

Andy's Deployment

I set up my entire army except for the rangers.  I outflanked the Ranger Squad. The Rangers did not have significant damage dealing potential this game, so I planned to use them to contest/grab an objective.

 

My Deployment

For psychic powers I got Protect/Jinx for the warlock and the Farseer got Eldritch Storm, Guide and Prescience

First turn

Andy did not move his army much since he already had 3 objectives and he wanted me to come to him. His dreadnought deep struck in his pod and killed 2 Warp Spiders and 1 Jetbike. He did some other shooting, but it did not do a lot of damage.

My turn I needed to destroy the Dreadnought and inflict some damage on the Terminators.  The Wraithguard and warp spiders both shot at the dreadnought to make sure it died while the rest of the army shot terminators and I killed 3 of them.

 

Andy's First Turn

Second turn

Andy’s flyer came in this turn. He positioned the flier so all of it shots from it would go into the warlock.  This was very smart move because I was going to make the terminators have -1 armor save during my turn.   I failed my look at sir’s rolls and all my saves so the warlock died.  The rest of the army shot up my Jetbikes and I lost another one.  

On my turn I move up the Warp Spiders jetbikes to shoot at his one squad of bikers. I was hoping to take them out. Most of army shot at them and when the smoke cleared he had one left.  My spiders and Jetbikes both tried to move back, but only warp spiders got far enough away.  His other squad of bikes are going to make the charge on my Jetbikes which was a misplay on my part 

 

My Second Turn

Third turn

His bikes and shoot and charge my bikes. His terminators were out of range. His other marines shot a tank but failed to get past it’s armor. My Auturch challenged and he accepted with his Sergeant.  He kills off the squad and Farseer, but since the autarch was fearless he stayed and held up the unit.  I needed him to hold up the unit as long as possible so I could finish off rest of his army.

On my turn the Rangers came in on my right flank where Andy was hold/contesting 3 objectives.  My whole army shoots at the terminators and once I finish off the terminators I started in on the Tactical Marines.  The Autarch holds for another round of close combat.

 

You can see my Autarch in top of photo.

Turn four

Andy did not have much to shoot or move at this point.  He advanced his Tactical into cover.  My Autarch holds for one more round of hand to hand combat, but with only one wound left he is likely to die next round

My entire army shoots into the tactical squad, killing all but 2 of them. Finally my Autarch died, but he held as longas I needed him to.

Turn five

My shooting has taken its toll and Andry once again did not have much to move.  With it being Turn 5 he tried to maximize his points.  His leader broke off from his Bike squad. His big bike squad turbo boosted onto an objective.  The one biker left from the original squad turboboosted to another objective.  His commander assaulted into the dire avengers and killed 3 of them but I passed my leadership test and held tight.

Thinking this might be my last turn I tried to contest and get as many objectives as I could.  The rangers moved to be on top of an objective.  The wraith guard moved so they could shoot the solo biker. Warpspiders moved to contest the other objective.  The rest of my army killed off the tactical squad.  In the assault phase my spiders moved to contest the objective.  Dirty trick #1.

 

My fifth turn before my warp spiders moved.

Turn six

Yes the game continues. Andy rolled for it.  He kills off the warp spiders and his character killed off my dire avengers.

My last turn all I needed was to get Andy’ bike squad to die or even run. I started moving both of my wave serpents onto the objective.  They were tank shocking as they moved directly over top of the objective. He passed the first leadership, but failed the second one and so the unit ran off the objective.  It is almost impossible to stop a wave serpent from tank shocking a unit.  This is another dirty tick from the Eldar because the wave serpent is large enough to lineup effective Tank Shocks on an objective and hard to knock down through Death or Glory.  Dirty trick #2.

 

Last turn before the second wave serpent tank shocked

The tank shocks net me a victory of 5 to 2. I had one objective (3 points) and First Blood and Line Breaker.  Andy scored two points for Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker.