Hey Mr. D, how did your character-assassin autarch build go? At 1500 I could see that, at 1850 I would not put my autarch beyond 100 points because he will ganked 110% of the time, even by Tau
Just got back from TSHFT, had a pretty solid showing, taking 3rd place, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Tanaka the Cannibal took his first loss, a crushing defeat to yellow-painted Ultramarines toting grav cannons and mucho psychic powers.
The list I took was pretty much the same as before, but switching out the laser for a hawk as suggested:
Farseer – jetbike, spirit stone
D-guard
Wave Serpent – holo-fields
Guardians
3x3 Scatbikes
23 Jetbikes
6 Hawks
Falcon – bright lance
Wraithknight – glaive & shield
Aspect Host:
8 Spiders
5 Dragons
4 Reapers
Game 1 (ITC Mission 1: Emperor’s Will, Dawn of War) against Jedi’s Thundercav + Skyhammer
Sanguinary Priest in a unit of Thundercav
Rune Priest in a unit of Devastators rocking melta
Couple of small squads in pods, 2x servitors, 10x fenrisian dogs
2x sicaran tanks
1x whirlwind with legacy ()
Stats and rules removed.This is the third consecutive thundercav+skyhammer army the Eldar have come up against, my prediction is it will end badly for the puppies. Even with the speed of the space dogs, the army just comes in too piecemeal relative to the Eldar speed and firepower. A lot will depend on first turn and who can put out the most damage immediately -- the sicarans could cripple both tanks, the whirlwind could wipe the wraithguard, and the skyhammer could kill all the scatbikes easily.
Imperials do win first turn, so Eldar bunch up behind a big hill on the far right, with jetbikes and guardians bubbling out to the left of it, and the wraithguard serpent on the right of it. Both skimmers manage to be out of LOS and/or range of the sicarans for T1. Swooping Hawks hang out way over on the far left flank as a distraction and to get some objectives possibly.
Skyhammer + tactical pods come raining down, taking out a unit of jetbikes, another jetbike rider, and a fire dragon, while killing all the guardians, taking down the wave serpent, and annihilating the swooping hawks. A bloody turn! But the whirlwind was unable to put the hurt on the wraithguard after a slightly-too-far scatter, so the Space Wolf warlord is now hanging out in the breeze at point blank range.
Eldar strike back and blow the autocannon off one sicaran and immobilize it, wipe out both units of devastators, including attached Rune Priest warlord (d-scythe to the face!), and put the hurt on some assault marines. Wraithknight jumps forwards on top of a huge hill and chooses not to charge, perching over the battlefield with his troll face on.
Imperials shoot at some jetbikes and move the thundercav up, having lost the entire skyhammer formation plus a sicaran (effectively).
Eldar clear out all remaining infantry with ranged shooting, and the wraithknight donkey punches the other sicaran, on the edge of the opponent’s DZ to the right. Thundercav are now in a nice position to either make a long charge into some jetbikes in front of the Eldar warlord, or to wipe out some fire dragons, or to move laterally down to the board (almost backwards) to snag the wraithknight.
Forced to choose between the Eldar ground forces and the Wraithknight, Thundercav choose wraithknight, and end up getting completely stomped out in one turn for their efforts (3 stomps, 2 sixes). The surviving Sanguinary priest hoofs it.
Scatbikes take out the fenrisian puppies; aspect warriors take out all the drop pods; wraithknight aces the whirlwind (which had not been super effective due to low rolling for templates).
Imperials refuse to give up, and the remaining two servitors hold their ground in a ruin.
Eldar turbo-boost towards the servitors while Dark Reapers destroy the second Sicaran (which they immobilized and weapon destroyed in T1) .
Servitors hold their ground.
Farseer and Warp Spiders charge in with blades bared, the Exarch killing one servitor, and the Farseer plunging his Naginata between the mechanical Mon-Keigh’s eyes, vanquishing the last Imperial servants from the table.
Eldar Victory!
Game 2 (ITC Mission 2, Vanguard Strike) against Todd’s Hive Fleet Kwodd
3x Flyrant
Tervigon
30 Gaunts
2x Malanthrope
2x Mucolid
Scythed Hierodule
Pairings got a bit mixed up this round, and the Eldar were originally going to face another Eldar player with suncannon knight and the cloudstrike formation, but it was not to be, as Hive Fleet Kwodd came hurtling into Croneworld space at the last minute.
Eldar win turn 1 and set up centrally along the DZ line for the most part, Wraithknight staring at the hierodule and pawing the ground. Nids fail to seize, and with the Farseer rolling Perfect Timing, Dark Reapers take out the Warlord Flyrant immediately, while massed shooting takes out another and puts some random wounds through elsewhere despite 2+ cover. A rough matchup with a really rough first turn for the Nids.
Nids come bounding forth, the surviving Flyrant heading for the Farseer attached to Reapers to try and get some Warlord Slaying action. Shriek is Denied, while below-average wounds and above-average saves only kills one reaper. On the right flank, the Hierodule puts a Hellstorm template all over the Warp Spiders, who manage to roll boxcars for Flickerjump and get the hell out of there.
Wraithknight comes up to the plate and takes out the Hierodule with his giant katana before it can strike back
rules and stats removed). Back on the Eldar side, close shooting (spiders, guardians, Wave Serpent, dragons, then finally the Reapers) take out the Flyrant. Scatbikes pop a malanthrope through the 2+ cover back in the nid DZ, and hawks take out a few gants with large blast plus lasers, but nothing spectacular.
Nids try to dog-pile the Wraithknight with gants, but he swings big and manages a lot of stomps too, killing something like 17 in one turn. Tervigon charges forth and destroys the D-guard serpent, but then gets D’d right back. Mucolids come in, but they get popped straight away too by Dragons and D-scythes targeting the Tervigon.
Eldar Farseer jets up and charges the lone surviving Malanthrope, getting two wounds with his witchblade – the Nid player calls it.
Eldar Victory!
Game 3 (ITC Mission 3: Relic, Hammer and Anvil) against AbusePuppy and his Equine Alliance
AbusePuppy is the reigning TSHFT champ from back in February, where he won with the Firebase Cadre + 4x DAVU Serpent Eldar + summoning Mantleseer, and he is back for some more! His new list takes advantage of some of the same tricks, along with some new ones, namely Ravenwing:
Primary – Ravenwing Strikeforce
Librarian on bike
5x3 Black Knights
2nd – Eldar CAD
Farseer on bike
5x3 Scatbikes
3rd – Firebase Cadre
Riptide
2x3 Broadsides with all the missiles
Fortunately this mission plays into the Eldar's hands quite well, with hammer and anvil allowing enough range to avoid the Firebase Cadre, while hopefully the wraithknight and wraithguard are tough and punchy enough to clear out the Relic.
Warlord traits Eldar is hoping for Conqueror of Cities or Night Attacker, but gets Ambush and re-rolls to -1 enemy reserves. Probably should have stuck with Ambush for denying the Ravenwing scout move, which I forgot about.
Psychic powers, the Imperial alliance takes a medley of shriek, guide, prescience kind of thing. Eldar manage to get Fortune, which is huge.
Eldar win first turn and deploy aggressively on DZ line facing down the Relic, ready to put up Fortune and bum rush the Relic with wraith units. Tau set up right at 30-36” away from the Eldar, while riptide and scatbikes hide behind large BLOS hills fairly far back, and the Ravenwing start on the DZ line then Scout forwards 12”.
The Equine Dream-Team manage to seize on a 5 (curse you Wraithknight, you better make it worth it!), and the Ravenwing promptly turbo-boost right into the Eldar DZ (a good 6” in), while the Firebase manages to take out the D-guard serpent and kill a dragon and a spider. Scatbikes are mostly out of range, although one unit does fail a DT test, then fails leadership and falls back.
Well that was a slap in the face! Also AP did a clever thing and split the Ravenwing down each flank – 4 squads of bikes on the Eldar right flank, largely behind BLOS cover, and the warlord librarian + squad on the left flank behind cover too. Which one to focus on? After thinking for a good long while, the Eldar send everything into the right flank – Wraithknight jumps up and aces a squad of 3 in combat. Dark Reapers drop down and ace a squad of three by denying their jink save and carefully avoiding intervening models. Unfortunately the third biker ended up being out of LOS, so their wounds didn’t carry over and only 2 died. Then the scatbikes put another wound through on one squad, and the warp spiders + scatbikes clean up an entire squad between them I believer. In the end, only three bikers between two squads survived, after the 3+ re-rolling jink saves. Phew. Meanwhile in the middle, the Falcon moved out of range of the broadsides and forced one squad to ground with pulse laser fire (passed the cover save). A respectable counter-attack from the Eldar so far, but far from being out of the woods.
Also at the beginning of the turn, swooping hawks on the left flank took a pinning test due to the Imperial warlord trait (Strategic – three units take pinning check) and failed, so just stood their while the enemy warlord almost drove into them, haha. This kind of makes up for AbusePuppy's scatbike unit falling back I suppose.
Alliance turn 2 – the warlord and unit take out the swooping hawks handily, and hide out of LOS, but back in the Alliance DZ the scatbike unit fails their morale again and run off the table. Firebase is mostly out of range and decides to move up, snap-firing into the Wraithknight to no effect – the Fortuned Wraithknight was hoping to be shot at really, getting his 3+ re-rollable plus FnP all day. The surviving two black knights on the right flank manage a sneaky charge into the Farseer plus jetbike retinue, but lose one to the ancient alien’s flickering witchblade almost immediately, then kill one jetbike in return. The other surviving black knight moves backwards and turbo-boosts onto the Relic to try and start shuttling it backwards.
Eldar Turn 2 sees the Fortuned Wraithknight bound toward mid-board, then manage a 9” charge into the last black knight, trouncing him and standing on the Relic. Back in the middle, guardians and fire dragons move up to get shots around a BLOS hill into the Imperial warlord, sneaking a wound into the Librarian and taking out a biker. Dark Reapers then open up, denying Jink saves, but with Look Out Sir the Librarian can pass off the four
low AP hits to his retinue out of LOS, with their re-rollable cover saves. Unfortunately for AP, he fails one Look Out Sir and takes a reaper launcher missile up his warlord, slaying him. Again in mid-field, the Falcon puts some
low AP shots downfield but the broadsides pass their saves after going to ground again. Back on the right flank, another jetbike squad charges into the lone black knight engaged with the warlord, and manage to bring him down with mean glares and rude names somehow, leaving the Farseer free.
Imperials are starting to look a bit thin on the ground, with only a two black knights alive at this point, tucked behind cover on the left flank in the shadow of their Warlord’s bones. The Firebase and scatbikes gather with the Riptide to finally do some serious damage to the Wraithknight and his wraithguard brothers behind him – a wound is caused here or there, but nothing decisive.
Eldar Turn 3 and Fortune goes up on the Wraithknight again, but the big monster fails his charge into the Riptide and just sits tight for a turn. In the Eldar DZ, the dragons and guardians gang up on the last two black knights, while everyone else starts putting shots downfield into the scatbikes and broadsides. One squad of scatbikes is taken out, and the Farseer plus scatbike squad is forced to jink due to pulse laser fire.
Turn 4 AP brings his models upfield somewhat, putting a lot of pressure on the right flank – a squad of jetbikes turbo-boosts, the Riptide jumps forwards, and the black knights shoot and charge the guardians, running them down after killing a couple. Shooting from the scatbikes and Riptide manages to wipe out the wraithguard after 5/5 failed saves, clearing a gap in midfield.
Hurting from those two losses, the Eldar kick into overdrive – dragons, Falcon, and scatbikes pour shots into the black knights, managing to bring down one. That 3+ re-rollable jink is really tough! Warp Spiders make a solid warp jump across the table to spin monofilament webs through the Riptide, bringing it down. Reapers overwhelm the Farseer and squad with S8 jink-ignoring shooting supported by scatter lasers, slaying the psyker and retinue. Another scatbike squad takes out its enemy counterpart, shooting laterally across the Eldar DZ into the turbo-boosting squad of three. The Wraithknight then steps up his game and clears out a squad of broadsides in one go, eyeing up the second mere inches away.
At this point the round is very short on time and the question is whether to call the game here, which was a bit of a shock to me, as in this case AP would actually win due to the wraithknight charging off the relic, and the warp spiders being out of position after killing the Riptide. Maelstrom was in his favour at this point, he had linebreaker most likely, while the Wraithknight had also vacated King of the Hill. But I was convinced that we could finish two full game turns in 10 minutes, given how few models of significance we had left, so we played on and French Overlord timed us at 5 min each.
Turn 5 Equine alliance – black knight shoots and charges dragons I believe, killing some. Scatbikes move up to claim relic, while broadsides clear out a squad of croneworld scatbikes.
Eldar Turn 5, the last turn – Wraithknight destroys the surviving firebase broadsides, the warp spiders horribly gank the last scatbike unit, and the Farseer jets over his minions to charge the last Black Knight, putting through 2 wounds with his witchblade, and for a third time in a row slaying the last enemy model on the table.
Eldar Victory!
This game was tactical and challenging, and AbusePuppy’s list can put out the serious hurt. Playing on Hammer and Anvil really helped the more squishy but very mobile Croneworld forces by being able to outrange the scatbikes and firebase cadre for most of the game, while rolling the Fortune psychic power pretty much won the game by making the wraithknight unkillable.
On to Day 2 and Game 4 as one of a couple of 4-0 players so far, and one of 2 with 33/33 points!
Edited for stats and rules. Please see forum rule 1 for details - Iris.