Alright team, got back from the RTT, was a total blast as usual.
List to beat was the Battle Company that got the better of my Eldar two events ago:
Commander - power fist, bolter
command squad (5) - 5 meltas, Drop Pod
3x 5 tacticals - melta, combi-melta, Drop Pod
5 assault marines - 2 flamers, Drop Pod
5 devastators - 2 grav cannons, Drop Pod
Chaplain - crozius, bolter
3x 5 Tacticals - plasma gun or heavy bolter, Rhino
5 assault marines - 2 flamers, Rhino
5 devastators - 2 lascannon, Razorback
3x5 scouts - bolters
Allied IG
Command Squad - 2 melta, Chimera
Veterans - 2 melta, Chimera
Wyvern Battery (2)
Last time these guys beat the Croneworld Eldar on Spoils of War by 1 VP, it was very close. Main lesson was to be more aggressive, as they really don't deal that much damage (aside from the wyverns, argh!), and also to refit the wraithknight with guns instead of a sword, to deal with all the tanks and multiple targets. A second change was to focus on Telepathy with the Farseer, ignoring Invisibility but going for Shrouded, Shriek, and Dominate if possible -- the Battle Co. is mostly lower leadership, so can be taken advantage of.
OK, so the list I actually took was:
Farseer - jetbike, spear for rhinos, WARLORD
5 wraithguard - d-scythes
Wave Serpent - Bright lance for Rhinos, Holo-Fields
3x3 scatbikes
2x3 jetbikes
5 rangers for anti-infiltrate & outflank shenanigans
Falcon - bright lance + pulse laser for drop pods
Wraithknight - wraithcannons, scatter laser
Void Shield Generator (3)
Aspect Host:
7 Warp Spiders + Exarch
7 Warp Spiders + Exarch
4 Dark Reapers + Exarch - EML
So Game 1 ended up being against my friend and chauffeur Father of the Void with his assault necrons. Unfortunately for him the Eldar managed to roll Invisibility + Shrouded, then got Master of Ambush as well as First Turn, and Imotekh failed to Seize.
2 turns of Ballistic Skill Eldar, Strength Monofilament wire later, the Necrons were down to just 5 immortals and a Night Scythe. Poor Ancient Nemesis never stood a chance.
Game 2 was against the Steel Host, 7 Leman Russes, a Hydra, and an Imperial Knight.
2 turns of invisible, void shielded Wraithknight and deep striking warp spiders later, there was just the hydra. Poor metal boxes never stood a chance.
Game 3 is back on Table 1 against the Battle Co as expected, playing ITC mission 4 -- the Scouring + Maelstrom secondary; tertiaries are Linebreaker, Warlord, and Big Game Hunter. DZ is Hammer and Anvil, thankfully -- helps funnel the boys in blue, and gives a range advantage against those awful wyverns.
Farseer rolls up Dominate, Terrify, Shrouding, and gets Shriek too for Focus. Just as planned so far! Then for Warlord he rolls up Conqueror of Cities on a ruins-heavy board -- fantastic! The biggest bonus is actually Move Through Cover for all the jetbikes and skimmers, but I'll take Stealth as well, tanks very much!
Eldar win the roll for First Turn and strategically pass it over to Battle Co so that the objectives can be cleared out each game turn.
Deployment is pretty standard, the Battle Co hug cover and set up a little firebase with lascannons on the right, guarded by chimeras and screened by rhinos and razors. Wyverns take hard cover on the left (you can just see their guns poking out):
Eldar put the VSG right in the middle of the DZ, 49" from the wyverns. Jetbikes spread out on the right, warp spiders bubble out to front and right, serpent goes on the left, falcon behind, farseer smack in the middle. Opponent is not a fan of the wraithknight sitting on top of the void shield generator, so he goes on top of a ruin on the front-right instead.
Eldar elect not to seize, so the marines get the party started. I'll save my breath and tell you right now that we both rolled "destroy an enemy unit" and "capture objective X" every single turn for our 2 maelstrom points.
Command squad and two tactical squads come thundering down in their pods to land on objective 3 and danger close to the wraithguard serpent. With a 3+ jink with stealth, the 7th melta shot sneaks through, at which point the serpent shield duly fails its almighty roll, and the metla-toter rolls a 5 to blow the graceful skimmer sky high where it belongs. No casualties from the explosion. Last tactical squad and the drop pods send some melta-bolter shots into the warp spiders, killing 1 and wounding the exarch. Lascannons from backfield take down a single void shield.
Here you can the Eldar deployment, infiltrating scouts, and deploying pods at top of Turn 1:
Eldar bounce back with a vengeance, the Farseer quickly exploding the minds of 3 tactical marines before they could reload. The Wraithguard pick their d-scythes out of the wreckage of their ride, and send 6 marines and a drop pod into another plane of existence. Wrap Spiders bounce forward and dispatch the last two marines this side of the field.
Scatbikes, reapers, and the falcon position to put shots downrange into infiltrating scouts and transports moving up, to knock the boys in blue off any midfield objectives. Three tanks take damage but do not die, while 4 scouts are taken down on the right. Falcon whiffed all his shots like a chump. Meanwhile the Wraithknight jumps towards mid-board, taking up a massive presence and exiting the void shield.
Maelstrom 2-2
Turn 2 and the battle company have two more pods come in, one lands in a small gap next to the void shield and trains its 2 flamers on the Eldar Warlord -- gulp. The other lands mid-board on objective 2, with the melta marines jumping out to blast the wraithknight. On the left side, a rhino moves up to secure the other objective 2 alongside the scouts. So now there is a vehicle, 5 marines + scouts on both objective 2s.
Shooting takes 2 wounds off the towering wraith construct, and the flamers instead foolishly decide to target the warp spiders, who easily warp jump out of range and take no damage.
Eldar reposition on their laser steeds, while the two warp spider units start moving up to take control of both objective 2s. Farseer Tanaka the Cannibal again unleashes his mind on the hapless marines, felling several, and the shuriken catapults of his jetbike retinue take care of the rest. This turn the Falcon unleashes its pent-up laser energy, hitting and penetrating the rhino on objective 2 no less than 3 times, sending the metal box soaring, slaying an unholy 4 scouts and 3 warp spiders in the explosion, hah! Those sneaky jumper aspects then take care of the tactical marines, while on the right side their brothers take down 4 of the melta marines also. Reapers put missiles into a backfield razorback, killing it, while laserbikes take down a rhino, spilling out the marines inside.
On the Marine side of the table, the Eldar Rangers come outflanking in on the right, weaving between three transports to put a pointed shoe on their objective 3 -- so long as the wraithguard backfield can take out the two drop pods, both objective 3s will be clear of Imperial control, denying them the Maelstrom point. As expected, the d-flamers ruin both pods easily. Meanwhile, the wraithknight crosses into Imperial territory, targeting the wyverns in cover with his wraithcannons, scoring two penetrating hits, neither of which are saved despite obscurement, and both of which result in titanic explosions -- ouch! Losing both Wyverns in one round is a sore injury.
Forgot to get a picture of the heroic Rangers, but you can see what happened to the left flank:
And here is the Eldar firebase, with LOS to several metal boxes:
Maelstrom 4-3 Eldar
Turn 3 and the outflanking scouts turn up, coming on behind the scatbikes to try and reduce their firepower, but to no avail as they roll horribly for shooting. Hoping to move up on the objectives and linebreaker somewhat, a Chimera starts trekking up the right hand side of the board towards the laser enclave, while the rhinos backfield disgorge their marines to take care of the Rangers, which they do. Lascannons and heavy bolters tear into the wraithknight, but to no avail this round.
Eldar continue the offensive, sending both warp spider units up to keep clearing out objective 2 on either side, while the Wraithknight bounds forwards to perch on a wrecked razorback, staring down the Space Marine Commander in his Rhino.
Backfield, the scatbikes start moving up to put more shots downrange, but in an effort to deny objective 2 they mostly target the drop pod sitting there -- but it lives on with 1 HP remaining. The commander's rhino also stubbornly refuses to die with 1 HP left, but the scouts are eliminated to a man with psychic shriek and accurate laser shooting. As the drop pod is unable to be eliminated, the Warlord's jetbike retinue turbo-boosts forth to contest objective 2, denying it to the Imperials once more.
Maelstrom 6-4 Eldar
Turn 4 and finally the Grav Cannon Devastators arrive! With the Wraithknight speeding towards their commander, the devastators land in the Imperial backfield and train their graviton weapons on the beast, along with the lascannons, heavy bolters, and melta guns in the blue DZ. After volley after volley of firepower, the Wraithknight is still standing with 1 wound remaining, despite not having a cover save this turn. In a last ditch attempt, the Chimera turns its turret and trains its lacklustre multilaser on the menace, scoring a wound. Picking up the dice, it comes down a 2 for amour save, and then a 4 for Feel No Pain -- the Wraithknight comes crashing down, saving the Imperial Warlord, scoring Big Game Hunter, 2 bonus points towards the maelstrom, and preventing an easy Linebreaker -- wow the Battle Company is still in this to win it! Back in the Eldar DZ, the other Chimera moves closer, and trains its multilaser through a window and the laserbikes, slaying one and forcing them to fall back after a failed morale check! My goodness, the Imperial Guardsmen are the true heroes here!
Eldar reel from the hefty loss, but only for a moment, as they quickly seek to reassert dominance over the battlefield. Tanaka the Cannibal moves up and spears his naginata through the side armour of a nearing chimera, destroying it and pinning the guardsmen for a turn, those cowardly mon-keigh.
Warp Spiders continue their advance, on the left they take down two marines in the commander's unit before bouncing behind cover, while on the right the last bolter-toter and his drop pod are both destroyed at last, clearing out objective 2 decisively. The remaining scatbike unit focuses on the lascannon devastators, taking out 3 but leaving the 2 lascannons unfazed. Back on objective 2, the jetbikes from last turn move forward to keep one of them out of LOS for next turn, ready for a run on linebreaker or objective 3 in the enemy DZ. By once more denying the boys in blue their objective 2, the Eldar manage to retain a lead in maelstrom:
Maelstrom 8-7 Eldar (5 + 2 bonus for killing Gargantuan Lord of War for Imperials)
Turn 5 and the game has only ten minutes left to go! This will be the decider. Right now both armies control their objective 3 and objective 1 in their respective backfields, while both objective 2s in midfield are open. The marines just need to tie maelstrom and tie on objectives to win the match, which means putting bodies on objective 2, and scoring +2 maelstrom (kill a unit, control an objective). Sounds doable!
The marines move up as much as possible, putting all the firepower possible into the single jetbike squad hiding beside objective 2 -- fortunately most of the army can only see 1 model, which dies, and the lone survivor passes his morale check! Imperials fail to kill a unit. Meanwhile a rhino passes its Dangerous Terrain to drive up a level and get next to Objective 2, controlling it for the Imperials. If the game ends right now, Maelstrom is Eldar, Primary is Imperials, Tertiary is Imperials.
Here you can see the 2 white jetbikers trying to get out of LOS -- one of them succeeds. After this picture was taken, the rhino below them to their left moves and flat-outs onto the wall next to them.
Eldar Turn 5 -- jetbikes just need to boost into the imperial DZ for Linebreaker, everything else shoots the rhino up its exposed, elevated ass, while the warp spiders jump back to objective 2 for the win.
I decide to start with the warp spiders warp jump and pick up the dice, rolling a 3" - so a 9" jump, just enough. Right after I roll, the TO shouts "DICE DOWN!" and we are over. I go to pick up the warp spiders to finish the move, and we have a little argument about whether that's legal as time had definitely been called already. My point is that the Imperials got a whole turn 5, the Eldar just need to finish this one movement, and all the dice necessary have been rolled already. Obviously the Imperials feel like the game should finish exactly at this moment, so we call the TO over and he rules that the warp jump is allowed to be completed -- BAM! Eldar tie primary by claiming the other objective 2, Eldar eke out +1 Maelstrom for claiming an objective this turn (thank goodness it wasn't 2x kill a unit this turn!), and it is an Eldar Victory 4-1!
Lesson Learned - Battle Company just do not put out a lot of damage if you force their options and take the fight to them. Splitting fire with the Wraithknight and letting him eat up damage to die was a good strategy, while focusing on Telepathy and rocking out those powers worked really well too. The other huge thing was taking 2x warp spiders over 1x spiders + 1x dragons. Totally worth it.
MVP: Warp Spiders! They were just all over the place, controlling board space, tanking shots, providing options, and dealing lots of death.
Also the rangers were key in outflanking at the right moment to snatch back an objective and win the Maelstrom for Eldar. Go Rangers!
Runner up MVPs would be the wraithknight for smashing his way through several tanks while soaking up the entirety of the enemy's firepower, and the Farseer for shrieking so many marines off the board, plus putting his spear right through the Chimera and pinning that squad. All of these were key moments, allowing the scatter lasers to focus on other things.
Wooden Spoon -- surprisingly the Dark Reapers! They just shot at obscured tanks, and while they get a lot of hits, not having AP 1-2 for the explosions really hurt. Chipping down Drop Pods 1 HP at a time is a pain, glad the Falcon was there to blow things up!
At this point I don't have any strong urges to tweak this tournament list any further. I thought about picking up an Autarch or a second Farseer, but to be honest in all of the hardcore games of late, one Farseer has really done the trick. An Autarch would be great, but it would cost the Falcon or a Scatbike squad, which are too useful already. 2 warp spider squads was just vicious this tournament, so I will be sticking with that for now too.
Next steps I will tweak my assault aspect list a bit further -- they are actually really powerful apparently, as I got a game in against two of my friends' tournament lists and managed to take them both out. Hooray for assault Eldar!
This was the last big event for me this year, until TSHFT next January in Seattle again, but look forward to some more painting and tweaking before then, and then we'll see how the pointy ears respond to the new Tau!! If there is going to be more emphasis on cover saves from those guys, maybe I will squeeze another farseer in for perfect timing -- that would ruin everyone's day. Or just get the assault Eldar ready for a high-level tournament and shove a katana up their .. never mind.
Cheers
Ibushi