Topic: Craftworld Fa'alnor (an Iyandenish force): Purging of the Olaghah region

[Gwaihir]

I am beginning a series of battle reports about the exploits of my craftworld.  I have given some background information in this thread.  Reply #45 is most relevant to background.  The thread also gives early history of FOC efforts, contains more details about some of the battles below, and gives an indication of early difficulties I faced (0-4 until I revised to a list like the one below).  I plan to update this thread each time I have a battle.

Craftworld Fa'alnor is dedicated to the protection of Exodite worlds and has a long history of subtle manipulation of Mon Keigh forces.  Fa'alnor military organization is very different than typical craftworld organization.  Few chose traditional aspect paths, but many follow aspect paths unique to Fa'alnor.  These paths closely parallel the fighting styles of the Dark Eldar.  Fa'alnor forces make frequent raids and are often confused for actual Dark Eldar forces.  When Fa'alnor deploys with the intent maintain a presence in an area it uses a force resembling the forces of Iyanden.

Craftworld Fa'alnor is currently making a push to clear a remote region of the galaxy of alien forces which threaten the Exodite world of Olaghah.  The sector is filled with foul Mon Keigh forces including Tyranids, Chaos, Necrons, Marines of various chapters, and Daemon Hunters.

The forces of Craftworld Fa'alnor have had numerous recent victories and farseer Fa'alorath has seen the future where region will flourish with Exodite planets free from Mon Keigh threats.

The force organization is as follows:

--HQ--

Farseer Fa'alorath occasionally leads the army and has the same stats and abilities as Eldrad.

Farseers Fa'manar and Fa'shaluth also lead the army at times.  Farseer Fa'manar is most often equipped with a jetbike, runes of warding and uses the power fortune.  Farseer Fa'shaluth uses the power fortune.

The Mighty Avatar often accompanies the force.

(-Eldrad and/or
 -Farseer with bike, runes of warding, fortune and/or
 -Farseer with fortune, runes of warding and/or
 -Avatar)

--Troops--

10x Wraithguard, Spiritseer with Conceal (occasionally Enhance)
10x Wraithguard, Spiritseer with Conceal (occasionally Enhance)

--Elites--

6x Firedragons (one occasionally replaced by flamer exarch)
4x Harlequins, 6x kisses, Troupemaster (power weapon on occasion), Spiritseer

--Heavy--

Falcon, 2x Shuricannons, Star/Vectored Engines, Stones, HField
Falcon, 2x Shuricannons, Star/Vectored Engines, Stones, HField
Wraithlord, 2x Flamers, EML, Scatter Laser
(2x D Cannon occasionally replacing wraith lord)

--Fast Attack--

Vyper, 2x Shuricannons, Star Engines
Vyper, 2x Shuricannons, Star Engines
(Occassionally 3d Vyper as above)

Recent Battle Highlights.

Chastening of Grey Knight force.  More info here post #19.  2250 point battle.  Result: Eldar Victory.  Grey Knights left with about 800 points.  Eldar with about 1200 points.

Reconnaisance effort crushing imperial guard force.  More info here post #1.  2000 point battle.  Result:  Eldar Victory.  Imperial guard forces dead, fleeing or being crushed by Avatar and wraithguard in close combat.  One tank of 6 remains.  Eldar win by about 600 points.

Repulsion of Necron force led by Nightbringer.  2000 point battle.  Result:  Eldar Victory.  Necron force phases out with over half of the Eldar force still on the table.  Nightbringer destroyed by heavy volley from firedragons, wraithguard and eldar vehicles.  Harlequins destroy 14 man necron squad in single round of assault due to sweeping advance.  Volley from firedragons and eldar vehicles eliminates 5 man squad of destroyers in sigle round of shooting before destroyers were able to acquire targets.  Two scarab bases assault and destroy a Falcon.

Delay of Nurgle threat and execution of a traitor.  2000 point battle.  Result:  Draw.  Eldar force led by Farseers Fa'manar and Fa'shaluth.  Gunsights improperly alligned before battle.  Multiple volleys with wraithcannons yield few enemy casualties:
 
 --10 wraithguard fire on advancing terminators getting only 2 hits, killing only one terminator. 

 --Volley of 8-10 shots on demonprince yields four wounds, one instakill wound and three others saved with 5+ invulnerable save. 

--Volley of 5 firedragon shots yields only one hit, fortunately it was enough to destroy a defiler. 

--Volley of 9 shuricannon shots on rear armor of predator only manages a crew shaken result which the possessed vehicle ignores. 

Due to the largely ineffective shooting efforts the nurgle forces crashed into Eldar lines very quickly.  The two wraithguard squads were able to sustain damage for several rounds while harlequins made hit and run attacks which slowly wore down the enemy forces.  The wraithlord was forced to join the combat to tie up units so the harlequins could safely disengage.

Near the end of the battle a falcon attempted to tankshock an obliterator hoping the enemy commander would take the bait and make a death or glory attack.  This would have destroyed the last remaining obliterator.  Obliterator takes the Falcon down with two 6s.  A second Falcon succeeds in crushing the Obliterator with the tankshock.  Perhaps the combined shooting of the two Falcons would have destroyed it leaving enough Eldar forces on the field to claim a vicotry.

By the time the two forces disengaged only a Vyper, Harlequin Troupemaster, and Falcon remained to the Eldar force.  The nurgle force was left with just the Predator and Demonprince.  The lost Falcon was the difference in the victory.

Erasure of tyranid incursion 2000 point battle.  Result: near complete annhilation of nid force with loss of only a couple models.  Farseers Fa'manar and Fa'shaluth again led the eldar forces. 

Tyranid army composed of:
Close combat carnifex,
Ranged carnifex,
3 squads of warriors (2 10 man squads winged with S6 small blast guns, 1 6 man squad with rending claws/scything) talons),
3 or 4 squads of ripper swarms.

Eldar plan consisted of crushing one nid flank while steadily withdrawing from nid advance on the other flank worked to perfection.  Eldar falcons and a vyper used star engines to position behind some area terrain hiding from most nid guns.  Nid fails to bring them down.  Next turn harlies disembark and advance toward position with option to charge ripper swarm, cc warriors or ranged carnifex.  Fire dragons disembark in position to shoot ranged carnifex.  Falcons and vyper move to provide covering fire.  Combined fire of Falcons, Vypers, Wraithlord and Dragons, kill the Carnifex and two separate ripper squads.  Harlies charge and kill 4 remaining warriors, sustaining no casualties and consolidating into cover away from tyranid threat.

At this point one ripper squad remains, two warrior squads remain and a carnifex remains.  They attempt to advance on eldar lines but Eldar steadily withdraw to allow time for the harlies, dragons and vehicles to continue crushing the flank.  When the carnifex gets close enough two squads of wraitguard and the firedragons pour fire into it destroying with the only round of fire it faced that game.  Last ripper swarm is eventually destroyed.  Faced with the prospect of a full wraithcannon volley the depleted central warriors decide to assault falcons instead.  They fail.  Next turn harlies emerge and finish them sustaining a single casualty.

Game called after turn five.  One squad of tyranid warriors remains, reduced in size and unable to engage eldar lines.  Total Eldar losses: 2 wraithguard, 1 vyper, farseer Fa'manar gravely wounded and unable to continue the fight.

Blood Angel Repulsion.  2000 point battle.  Result:  Eldar victory.  Eldar led by Farseer Fa'shaluth and the Avatar.  A d-cannon battery replaced the wraithlord for this battle.  Spiritseers used enhance for this battle (I wasn't tailoring to a cc army; I made the list before finding an opponent).  Eldar deploy in tight formation on one flank with squad of wraithguard in the middle of the deployment zone.  Blood Angel snipers infiltrate on the flank anchored by a squad of wraithguard and have deployment balanced across the board.

Snipers and an assaultcannon speeder quickly kill four wraithguard on the flank.  Death company and assault scout squad advance on the guard.  Wraithguard withdraw seeking cover from snipers and hope to lure scouts out of cover for an effective volley.  Vypers move to shoot down speeder but poor estimation of range leaves them with no target.  Falcons advance to some cover, but have shots on baal predator which had been shaken by d-cannon barrage and destroy it.

Snipers reposition to have shot on wraithguard, scouts advance hoping to assault wraithguard.  Death company advances and threatens wraithguard, d-cannon battery, and planned disembarkation area of dragons with charge the following turn.  Speeder and devastator squad down a vyper.  Wraithguard advance toward death company hoping for range sufficient to kill two or three of their number.  Only two guard are in range.  Manage to kill one and put a wound on the librarian (or whatever was leading them).  Remaining vyper advances and shoots at speeder shaking it.  Two falcons advance on flank, dragons disembark into forrest.  Volleys by falcons and dragons destroys a jumppack squad leaving only the master.  Second wraithguard squad advances from position 12" from corner of board toward center; falcons had hampered earlier movement.  D-cannon barrage scatters badly leaving the death company unscathed.  Avater and fortuning farseer move to support the first wraithguard squad faced with inevitable destruction at the hands of the death company.

Deathcompany and scouts advance on wraithguard.  Shaken speeder moves to threaten d-cannon battery with shooting the following turn.  Master whose squad was destroyed hides hoping to continue to provide leadership boost for the rest of the army.  He could have charged the dragons, but would have been charged by harliquins the next turn so chose a different path.  Tactical squad advances torward Falcons.  Devastator squad fires 2 lascannons and 3 missile launchers and the harlie Falcon taking off the pulse laser and shaking it.  Second devastator squad drops remaining vyper.  Snipers again drop a couple wraithguard.  Only four and the seer remain, but they are quickly eliminated by the death company.  Fortuned avatar advances on the death company, but needs to assault through difficult terrain and comes up about 1/4 inch short with a 4 on the reroll.  Firedragons advance to fire on the devastator squad and with the combined efforts of their guns and their falcon destroy it.  Harlie Falcon moves to set up next turn assault against the approaching tac squad.  Remaining wraithguard advance toward the same tac squad.  D-cannon barrage scatters and fails to kill scouts who are near the death company.

Marine tactical squad advances on wraithguard rapidfiring and firing plama gun and pistol killing one.  Fire pours into the fortuned Avatar from snipers, scout and death company pistols and the speeder taking away one wound.  Death company charges and the infuriorated Avatar kills four.  Only one member of the death company and the librairan(?) remain but they put 2 more wounds on the avatar who now has only a single wound remaining.  Dragons jump back in the Falcon which moves to fire on second tactical squad which is near the center of the board.  The Falcon is now in the enemy deployment zone.  The harlie Falcon uses the star engines to move behind a bit of cover to a position from which the haries will threated the second tac squad and the remaining devastator squad with an assault the following turn.  The wraithguard advance of the first tac squad, open up with a full volley, destroy it with a follow up assault and consolidate 6" toward the center of the board and into a position threatening the second tac squad the following turn.  The farseer fails his fortune attempt on the Avatar for the second time in the game, but charges in to support the Avatar in the assault.  The librarian is killed, but the last death company member stands fast.  The d-cannons again scatter badly and fail to kill the target scouts.

The second tac squad advances toward the wraithguard and opens up with a full volley killing three with plasma weapons.  The snipers move into a new firing position because they have no targets.  The devastator squad full of heavy bolters and a single missile launcher fires on the wraithguard as does the cc scout squad which is advancing toward them, but the shots do nothing.  The speeder destroys a d cannon and kills all the crew with a single devastating volley.  The Avatar finishes the last death company memeber and consolidates toward the scouts as does the Farseer.  The Farseer and Avatar advance further toward the scouts and the Avatar kills one with his sword.  The Fire Dragon's Falcon tankshocks and kills a member of the devastator squad.  The harlies disembark and move to a position which will allow a charge on either the tac squad or the devastator squad before its Falcon moves to fire on the scouts.  The wraithguard shoot and charge the tac squad killing only three or four, while being reduced to about 5 members by the return attacks.  The harlies decide (probably wrongly) to charge the devastator squad instead of supporting the guard against the tac squad.  The powerweapon toting troupemaster kills them all before the rest of the squad rolls their attacks.  Harlies consolidate toward the tac squad.  The Avatar and farseer kill a bunch of scouts.

The speeder and snipers shoot at and kill (good rolls for seeing them) 4 of the harlies.  Two more wraithguard are killed in cc, leaving two or three and the seer.  The Avatar and Farseer finish the scouts and consolidate toward the scout squad.  The remaining harlies move to charge the second tac squad.  Both Falcons move to shoot the snipers, and the dragons hop out of one in melta range of the speeder.  The Avatar not sure whether it should go after the speeder or help in the cc choses wrongly and moves out of assault range of the cc (bad move as if it did not move in the movement phase, it could easily have charged either if necessary).  The dragons easily drop the speeder.  The Falcons kill a couple of scouts who roll very well for the saves.  The harlies assault the tac squad killing just one and the wraithguard kill none, but lose two of their own.

All that remained of the marine force was a sniper squad still above half strength and a tac squad at half strength within range of the objective counting for double points.  The Eldar force still had both Falcons and the Dragons who were in range of the objective counting for double points, as well as the Farseer, Avatar, under half strength wraithguard and under half strength harlies.

As I play more games, I will post future reports.

[Redlion]

Very nice, it seems you have hit your groove with your army Gwaihir. In the one game, I would have elected to fire both falcons at that Oblit. Really good chances of you killing him. That last game was a nail biter though, congrats on all your victories though. Also good luck on your future games as well.

[Gwaihir]

In the one game, I would have elected to fire both falcons at that Oblit.

That probably would have been the better move. The first Falcon could have tankshocked him and still shot him had he moved out of the way or shot at something else if it killed him.  The 1/9 chance of losing the Falcon made it seem like a good idea.  I didn't quite trust shooting with both Falcons.  4 pulse lasers for 2 hits, 5/3 wounds = 5/6 wounds after the save.  12 shuricannons yield 6 hits, 4 wounds = 1/3 wounds.  Add that to the pulse laser and it is only 7/6 wounds with all the guns.  Still probably would have been better though because it may have saved the Falcon and I could have dedicated two turns to shooting the oblit.

Very nice, it seems you have hit your groove with your army Gwaihir.

I am getting that feeling, but I am a bit skeptical of the results as I would have to say that the quality of my recent opponents or their lists haven't been particularly high.  I'll have a better idea next time I face the black templar player who gives me real trouble.  Right now he is running two 25 or so man squads that get to pick who they zeal at, get to reroll the zeal roll and get to add 3" to that roll.  Those squads are so large that it is almost impossible to shoot them and not get assaulted by a large contingent of remaining members, shooting them just makes them hit you faster, and if you don't shoot them the numbers will crush you.  If I bit him, I will be feeling very good about my list.

That last game was a nail biter though, congrats on all your victories though. Also good luck on your future games as well.

Thanks.  My army is developing a bit of a reputation if for no other reason because of my striking color scheme (Yellow, Orange and Green), and the rare use of large numbers of guard.

--

I have my next list prepared, though I am not sure when I will play, probably Sunday or Tuesday.  I will be using both the Avatar and Farseer Fa'alorath (Eldrad), but drop the Wraithlord leaving the 2 Falcons as my heavies.  The rest of the list is essentially the same.  I will post a report here after that game.

[Redlion]

I wonder if 2 prisms would soften up those 2 big ole templar units enough. Yeah I agree you could have some issues against that, especially if he is a competent player, which going by what you have said he is. I guess you can try and just play keep away with your falcons, and vypers for as long as possible. Your wraithguard units, Avatar, and Eldrad sitting back as far as possible.

Also are they fearless ? Can you pin him ? ES with doom might be good against those 2 big units, on bunched up marines, plus has a chance to pin. That is unless they are fearless. Doom on a 2 linked prism shot would proabably be very painful to him as well. Even one prism's big blast with doom on the unit would be a concern. Depending on how many you can get under that blast marker. Regardless you got your work cut out for you.

I would shoot them, force them forward, then zoom behind him, and shoot them all the way in. After you get rid of any of his anti tank stuff that is. I might not even have my falcon units loaded up at the start of the game.  It of course depends on what other units he has in the game. That sounds like a fun battle.

Anyway, good luck on it.

[Gwaihir]

Rather than get sidetracked with a tactics discussion about a future battle, I started a new thread about the potential battle with the Black Templar player which can be found here.

[Farceseer Syranaul]

With your fight against Blood Angles it seems that you should have been fortuning the wraithguard.  They seem to fail many saves against sniper rifles.

Good work and best of luck.

[Gwaihir]

With your fight against Blood Angles it seems that you should have been fortuning the wraithguard.  They seem to fail many saves against sniper rifles.

I sort of did that squad a diservice.  They were basically in position to hold the flank of my lines, but they faced the combined wrath of much of his army (death company, snipers, land speeder).  Part of the problem was I didn't prepare for the snipers when deploying.  He was able to set up for a perfect volley in a postion where I couldn't get to them with anything.  Then he got first turn so there was no way to protect from the first volley which did most of the damage.

On top of that, my farseer set up about 18" away to support either the Avatar or other wraithguard squad.  I probably should have been in a spot where I could support either squad, but didn't so the squad was basically on its own.  I did have only one fortune casting available per turn and when death company got close it was for the Avatar.  If he wasn't fortuned, I probably would have lost the game, but if the farseer was in a different position, it could have protected the guard until the Avatar needed it.

[Starrakatt]

   Wow! Not 1 but 6 battle reports in one post, and five victories and a draw, no less! Congratulations!
   For what you said for your latest opponents not being your match skills VS skills, I would not be too fast too dismiss your success against them, since strings of bad luck and tactical errors usually happens in the long terms and you could quite have been beaten badly by some of them, particularly with a Wraith heavy list since they are usually unforgiving.
   But I'm rambling now Gwaihir, you quite demonstrated in earlier posts that you know what you're talking about and had severe playtests with your actual force.

   Altough the three first are more short resumé than real batreps, I'd assume they are games that were fought some time earlier than the last featuring BAs and used more as an introduction for the latest ones. (And the fact that writing six batreps in details would be a real pain... )

   I quite like both the way you composed your army list, keeping it very themed IMHO and the way you wrote the reports. BTW, in stringing them one after the other like you did, you succeeded in creating a sense of anticipation for the next results, which I think is great.
   And since I have some of mine taking dust on the shelve, I'll take the liberty to borrow the idea to post them all before dying of old age, thank you very much.

   And I long to read that battle against that BT you were talking about. Should be quite interesting.

   Starky

[Gwaihir]

Altough the three first are more short resumé than real batreps, (And the fact that writing six batreps in details would be a real pain... )

A pain to write and maybe even to read.  I've also provided most of the details of those three earlier battles in other posts, the one I linked to and another I started a while back about star engines on vypers.  And here is the link to the second, linky.  Post #1 has a few more details about the imperial guard game and post #19 has a few more details about the grey knights game.

And I long to read that battle against that BT you were talking about. Should be quite interesting.

I am looking forward to it too, but have no idea when it may happen.  We sort of just show up at the shop and play whoever happens to be there and be available so sometimes it can take a while to face a particular opponent.

For what you said for your latest opponents not being your match skills VS skills, I would not be too fast too dismiss your success against them, since strings of bad luck and tactical errors usually happens in the long terms and you could quite have been beaten badly by some of them, particularly with a Wraith heavy list since they are usually unforgiving.

Well I played again yesterday against an opponent that has beaten me the other three times I have played him, so this game presented more of a challenge than the past ones.

My list was essentially the same as above with the standard troops, elites and fast attack choices though I needed to drop one harlie's kiss to come in under 2000.  I used two Falcon's, Farseer Fa'alorath, and the Avatar to round out the force.

My opponent played "Death Watch" or "Death Guard" or something along those lines.  This is a marine chapter or something that I had never heard of.  I was mostly the same as standard Marines, but two squads had special bolters that were S3 Assault 18", and special heavy bolters that were assault weapons.  The squads also had a couple members with power weapons.

His list was more or less as follows.  I may not have the exact numbers right though.

--HQ--

Leader (not sure which variety) with lightning claws 2+/4+ save, litanies of hate and mayber a couple extra goodies.  He was in a drop pod with a squad of about 6 marines of the special variety mentioned earlier.  The squad had a powerfist model and a meltagun.

Leader (again not sure of the variety, and this time don't really know about his equipement as he really had no impact on the game).  He was in a drop pod with the other special squad with the special heavy bolters and other special guns.  They had some cc stuff too I think, but never did anything other than shoot.

--Troops--

7x Scouts; 6x sniper rifles, 1x missile launcher
7x Scouts; 6x sniper rifles, 1x missile launcher
5x Scouts; 4x sniper rifles, 1x missile launcher
6x Man Tac squad; 1x lascannon
6x Man Tac squad; 1x lascannon
6x Man Tac squad; 1x missile launcher

--Elites--

This may have been the slot used by the "Death Watch" or whatever those guys were.  I don't think they were retinues.
Dreadnaught in droppod with assaultcannon, heavy flamer, DCCW

--Fast Attack--

Speeder; Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter
Speeder; Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter
Speeder; Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter

--Heavy--

I think he had a devastator squad, but it may have been one of the earlier mentioned tac squads.  He only gave the squad one heavy weapon though so I am not quite sure about the FOC slot.

The mission:  While removing the civilian population of a planet recently cleared of imperial forces, Eldar forces encountered an as yet unknown Marine chapter tightly clustered in a broken down building and nearby ruins.  The Eldar Wraithguard and their support units advanced steadily through the hail of fire with the sole intention of utterly decimating the human forces.  There were no objectives other than to kill and there was no time for infiltrators as the battle came as a suprise to the human forces (Farseer Fa'aloroth of course had forseen the impending battle and had the necessary forces on hand to deal with the Marine presence).

The battlefield:  There was a healthy amount of level three area terrain; a fairly even mixture of forrests and ruins.  Marines black, Eldar Yellow; not all models represented. 



Deployment:  The entire marine force other than those to be droppodded set up in the two terrain features in the corner.  A tac squad with lascannon and scout squad with missile launcher set up in the ruins to hold the flank.  The rest of the foot droops deployed tightly in the two story builing more or less in the corner.  A landspeeder positioned to the right of the ruins (from his perspective), another behind the building, and the last behind the other ruins abutting the short board edge.

I deployed both falcons in almost the opposite corner as it was the only spot I could safely ensure no first turn shots would hit them.  They were supported by a vyper.  The two wraithguard squads deployed in cover roughly opposite his main force.  Farseer Fa'alorath deployed behind and between the squad.  The Avatar and second Vyper deployed behind the ruins in which one wraith squad was deployed.

The Eldar begin by moving for position.  Fa'alorath gave fortune to the Avatar and left Wraithguard squad.  The wraithguard squads moved forward into cover.  The left squad advancing through forrests and the right squad forced to cover some open ground attempted to use a ruined farm building to cover them from the sights of the Marine shooters.  The Avatar marched boldly forwad fearing not the guns of the Marines.  One vyper boosted forward to position itself behind some ruins at the board edge and out of the line of sight of marine forces.  Meanwhile the Falcons and second Vyper made good use of their advanced engines to burst forward into a position which threatened to overwealm the Marine flank.

The Marines responded in the same manner as a turtle.  The two speeders which had taken advanced position withdrew to a position next to the third speeder where they could not be shot, but could lend support where needed as the Eldar continued their advance.  Then the foot troops opened up with a heavy concentration of fire.  The left wraithguard squad obscured by the forests and protected by the Farseers visions of the future proved to be unkillable.  The Marine forces shifted focus after gaining nothing to the Avatar who also proved nearly imossible to hurt, though a single wound slipped through his armor.  Frustrated by the failure of the shooting the Marines shifted focus again to the squad without fortune and managed two kill two members of that squad.

Farseer Fa'alorath again cast Fortune on the same targets before joining the left wraithguard squad to guard against the possiblilty of reinforcements deepstriking close enough to target him.  The Avatar moved forward attempting to use a ruined farm building as cover and managed to get out of the line of sight of most of the Marine guns.  The right wraithguard advanced into the building who length kept them out of line of sight of marine guns as well.  The right vyper's position was safe, and it waited for an opportune moment to strike.  On the Flank, the Falcons and Vyper moved forward and formed a line on the edge of the battlefield.  The front Falcon contained a squad of harliquins and was about 14" Inches from the lascannon tack squad.  Behind it was a vyper protecting the exit hatch of the Falcon should the Marines attempt to use a speeder to block it.  The rear of this formation was the third Falcon bearing the fire dragons.  The three vehicles opened up killing two marines leaving four in the squad.


The first of the Marine reinforcements arrived via drop pod.  The target landing zone was a position which would fill the gap between the ruins and the building the marines were using for cover, but the pod drifted parallel to the lines and landed in front of the far corner of the building.  The marines in side hopped out near the building using the pod for cover.  The Marines, sensing a serious threat to their flank sent the three landspeeders to support that position.  The lascannon tac squad downed the vyper with a single well aimed shot, then the three landspeeders opened up on the front Falcon shaking the crew, but failing to bring it down.  Other Marines focused fire on the wraithguard squad advancing through the forrest and managed to brind down one or two with their fire.

Farseer Fa'alnor had expected the deepstriking reinforcments and sensed that more were coming, but he had spent too much time concerned about that and not enough considering the position of his forces.  He now found himself out of range of the Avatar and second wraithguard squad and unable to assist them, instead he cast fortune on his own squad.  The other problem that faced the Eldar was that it was not time for the harliquins and possibly firedragond to disembark, but the land speeders threatened them, particularly the dragons.  On the other hand, if they could be downed, the Eldar forces would complete manouverability supremacy.  Only one Falcon and the firedragons could shoot though, and this would leave one speeder unharmed.  The only way to drop all three and give the dragons a chance of survival was to bring the remaining vyper over for support, but the distance looked to be near the maximum of its range, and it would almost certainly be brought down to marine shooting the next turn as it would be right in front of their gun line.  The potential gains were enough to take the risk so the vyper moved as close as possible.  The harliquins disembarked and moved straight toward the tactical squad with lascannon.  Their Falcon unable to shoot boosted in front of the enemy gun line to a position where it would, if shot down, provide cover for the advancing wraith guard.  It and the newly arrived drop pod could potentially remove ling of sight of nearly the entire marine line.  The Dragon Falcon moved forward and was forced to turn sideways to get the dragons as close as possible to the speeder.  Its rear was covered by area terrain so unless something landed in the terrain, it was safe.  The dragons hopped out and hoped they were in range.  Meanwhile the wraithguard and avatar continued their advance.  Fa'alorath concentrating on troop deployment forgot his intention to separate from one squad of wraithguard to join the other so as to assist the Avatar in the future.  The vyper opened up on the speeders destroying an engine which caused it to crash.  The falcon shot at a second and likewise caused a critical engine failure resulting in its destruction.  The dragons were in range and opened up on the third destroying its assault cannon and shaking the crew.  The harlies ran toward the tactical squad and found themselves close enough to assault the scouts as well.  One marine and 4 scouts after the harliquins flurry of blows, but those remaining members managed to kill two harlies.  The harlies chose not to disengage in order to ensure that the marines and scouts would not fire that turn.

The remaining Marine reserves arrived via droppod and were tasked with destroying the fire dragons and their falcon.  A dreadnaught disembarked within flamer range of the Falcon.  Unfortunately for the dragons many stood between the flamer and the Falcon.  A deathguard droppod landed on the flank of the falcon in position to shoot past it at the dragons.  The shaken landspeeder boosted over behind the newly arrived droppods into a position where it would be untouchable if the falcons and vyer were destroyed.  The dread killed four dragons with the flamer, and destroyed the pulselaser and shook the Falcon with its assault cannon.  The newly arrived marines finished off the remaining two dragons.  The vyper was eventually destroyed after being fired upon by three squads and the other Falcon was shaken.  One wraitguard may also have been destroyed.  The harliquins killed the last tactical marine and another scout losing no models in the return attacks then hit and ran directly behind the building full of marines.

After fortune was again cast on the left wraithguard, both Falcons boosted away into positions of cover in the Eldar DZ.  Both wraithguard squads and the Avatar advances and Fa'alorath detached from one squad to attach himself to the other.  The eldar guns had very little to shoot at as the marines were still out of range of the wraithguard and both Falcons were shaken.  One wraithguard squad was now of necessity in open terrain and the second was still attempting to get close enough to do anything.  The Avatar was out of cover, out of line of sight but still 20" or so away from marine lines.  The left wraithguard did manage to inflict a couple casualties on the nearest marine squad, and Fa'alorath scrambled the brain of a lascannon gunner.  The harliquins then charged a sevenman scout squad killing all but two suffering no casualties in the return attack.  Another scout dropped because of the ATSKNF/fearless interaction leaving just one which the harlies surrounded.

The marines were feeling serious pressure and unless the harliquins were removed from their lines, they would be tied up until the wraithguar and more threateningly Avatar arrived to finish them.  The squad which had droppodded in front of the building now moved around the side preparing for a charge.  The dreadnaught and the other droppodded squad were now in a very bad position with little to shoot at and needed to spend a turn or two moving to acquire new targets.  The marines a little to eager to attack moved forward into a position which cut off the advance of the dreadnaught which then had to move to get around them.  What neither realized was that a Falcon was lurking and waiting for a rear armor shot with its shuricannons, and that it had just been offered such a shot.  The landspeeder pilot now recovered from the Firedragon volley repositioned to take some shots at the left wraithguard squad with its remaining heavy bolter; that volley accomplished nothing.  The rest of the marine shooting phase was likewise hampered by lack of targets, thanks in part to the bad positioning of the first droppod, Eldar durability and the loss of heavy weapons due to mind war and the effects of harliquin assaults.  Perhaps a sigle wraithguard dropped, but little else was accomplished.  The assault phase was more productive as the marine leader charged the harliquins with support from his squad.  The scout was ignored and survied, the troupemaster inflicted a wound on the leader and two marines dropped to the rending blows of the other harlies.  The return attacks were brutal and the troupemaster was all that remained when a marine with a powerfist struck with deadly force killing him as well.  The marine squad consolidated toward the side of the building from which the left wraithguard squad was approaching.  This was a mistake though the commander did not realize it at the time.

Fortune was cast on the right wraithguard squad and the Avatar and a marine squad was doomed.  The Falcons saw their prey and moved to attack; one preparing to fire a salvo into the rear of the dreadnaught, the other taking careful aim at the last distant speeder.  The left wraithguard advanced toward the nearest marine squad now with only three members remaining, while the avatar and right wraithguard squad advanced still looking to close with the enemey.  The Avatar wanted to use the droppod to catapult himself forward with an assault move but after movement was still about 8" away.

Cell phone rings, I pick up, wife is not happy and I need to get home ASAP

...was still about 8" away.  A Falcon opens up with both shuricannons on the rear armor of the dread, gets a penetrating hit, but only stuns the dread which thanks to extra armor can still move.  The other Falcon does better and gets a direct hit with a pulse laser shot destroying the last land speeder.  One wraithguard squad is now in charge range of the marine lines, and the Eldar do something which catches the marine commander by suprise, they charge rather than shooting.  This charge will tie up the lines keeping them from shooting any more until the Avatar arrives.  Marines strike first, but cannot harm the wraithbone constructs.  17 attacks by the enhanced wraithguard and their spiritseer is more than enough to kill the remaining three marines.  The consolidation move allows the wraithguard to tie up the command squad and a sniper squad.  The marine commander is stunned by this unexpected development and realizes that he is now in a position where there is nothing he can do to stop the Eldar advance.

The marines have little they can do in the way of shooting.  Some units are locked in cc, others are out of range, others have line of sight blocked by their own droppod.  The assault is largely unproductive, a wraithguard falls to a powerfist and a couple of scouts are killed, consolidation moves allow the marine comander to throw his weight into the next round of combat.

Farseer Fa'alorath fearing the wrath of the missus decides to hurry his forces toward the conclusion of the battle and doesn't take the time to use any powers or direct his two falcons toward worthwhile targets.  The Avatar constinues his steady, but slow advance, and the wraithguard squad sees an oportunity to joint the assault and moves toward the powerfist model which is nearest them.  Eldar shooting does nothing and the intended charge by the wraithguard comes up just short.  A couple models on both sides die in the assault, but both sides stand fast.

The lone sniper whose squad had been decimated by the harliquins decides he has had enough and runs.  The dread and nearby squad attempt to be relevant by moving forward.  They do manage to kill one wraithguard with shooting.  Blows are exchanged in assault accomplishing little.

End Turn 6.

--------

The Marine commander had hoped that his detachment could delay the Eldar forces long enough for reinforcements to arrive and stop the Eldar advance.  This was not to be.  Though on paper his remaining forces and those of the Eldar looked to be evenly matched, on the field of battle it was clear that the Eldar had siezed the inititive and it was only a matter of time before his forces were wiped out to the man.  They still had two of their deadly grav tanks mobile and full of heavy guns.  He had at his disposal only one platform capable of bringing them down, but undoubtably the grav tanks would have little trouble outmanouvering and destroying it.  His main gunline was locked in combat with a foe that was nearly impervious to the the blows of even his mighty warriors and the Eldar war God was about to crush what remained of his gunline after the approaching squad of dead Eldar warriors unleashed the terrible destructive force of their brutal guns.  This would probably be followed by a charge which his forces would not withstand.  One squad of deathwatch would remain untouched, but would be surrounded and would face the combined wrath of however many wraith constructs remained, the untouchable grav tanks, the powerful seer capable of crushing the minds of his men and of course the eldar God.  The first troop had seen the inevitability of the situation and broken.  That troop was right.  I was time to pull out of this unwinnable battle, regroup and fight at another, more favorable time...

Battle Result:  Draw, Eldar have control of the table, but the vicotry points are nearly even at the end of turn 6.  Map coming in a while.

[Starrakatt]

   Waiting...waiting.. .

   The Deathwatch is the spearhead of the Ordo Xenos. They are very elite SM taken from chapters all over the Imperium and are specially trained to fight xenos of all kind.
   For gameplay, I think they all have the Prefferred Enemy USR, 2 attack base, access to a load of special CCW and some unique weapons, like special ammos for Bolters and/or HB, and the 18'' assault 3 HB are HB with a built-in gravity plate or something like that.
   Overall a tough threat to any xenos force but also costly as hell.

   Starky

   Still waiting (checking watch)...

[Gwaihir]

What you said about deathwatch sounds exactly like what I faced, though he appears not have have rememberd the preferred enemies rule.

[Starrakatt]

   Good report, seems that SM player had troubles with the removals of your Dead Warriors. Crushing the left flank even before the Pods came in was brutal for him but I think you should have kept the Dragons inside their transports for a turn more, so that you could have used them to destroy the Dreadnought or a Deathwatch squad.

   As you stated yourself, you seem to have made some errors with Fa'alorath: some bad positioning, which deprived you of some your well needed psychic powers, forgetting to use said powers for en entire turn and forgetting to move these Falcons too!
   I wasn't there (obviously) but it's very probable that these are what cost you a solid victory.

   Also, looking at your map, it seems to me that you deployed the Avatar between 3'' to 6'' from the table edge where you could instead have put HIM near/behind the right south-north orientated structure where HE still would have been screened from most of the enemy guns and much nearer. Also, I didn't read HIM shooting with the Wailing Doom in the last stage of the game, was it you had a total lack of targets?
   Whatever the reasons, I think HE not getting in assault at all hurt you much when it came to the last two CC phase. HE could have hurt a lot these Deathwatch teams.

   Anyway, good report, good battle and my guesses are that you will remember very well what happened when you forgot to move your units or use your Farseer's powers.
   The fact that the SM player had a static gunline army (bar the droppers) didn't help either tough. Had he moved a bit toward you, the Wraithguards and Avatar could have entered in the dance sooner.

   A last question Gwaihir: you said that you used the same list as before but I didn't see the Wraithlord, so I guess that game was played at 1850 or near it?

   Starky 

[Magus_42]

Deathwatch don't have preferred enemy, and they don't have two base attacks unless upgraded to veterans. They have true grit, however, and some unique weapons. They aren't very efficient, being pricier than veteran squads for little real benefit, but are very cool (I'm currently modelling some for my marine army).

His list was illegal, however. He is only allowed one kill team, and he can't have a chaplain (litanies of hate) drop pod in with a kill team. The kill team takes up an HQ slot, and consists of a captain or librarian and a retinue of 4-9 marines. There is no option for a chaplain, and a character can generally only arrive in a drop pod belonging to their retinue.

Their rules are here if you're interested:

http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/spacemarines/gaming/deathwatch/default.htm

[Starrakatt]

Deathwatch don't have preferred enemy, and they don't have two base attacks unless upgraded to veterans. They have true grit, however, and some unique weapons.

   Duly noted, I stand corrected. Sorry if I mislead people, Deathwatch isn't my field of expertise.

They aren't very efficient, being pricier than veteran squads for little real benefit, but are very cool.

   True!

Their rules are here if you're interested:
http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/spacemarines/gaming/deathwatch/default.htm

   Yes, thanks a lot.

   Starky

[Gwaihir]

Good report, seems that SM player had troubles with the removals of your Dead Warriors. Crushing the left flank even before the Pods came in was brutal for him but I think you should have kept the Dragons inside their transports for a turn more, so that you could have used them to destroy the Dreadnought or a Deathwatch squad.

That probably would have been a good idea.  I was concerned about the speeders and had a chance to take them all down so went for it, but patience may well have proved the wiser course.  I wasn't sure the other vyper would be in range either, so I was sort of hedging my bets hoping do down two at the least.

As you stated yourself, you seem to have made some errors with Fa'alorath: some bad positioning, which deprived you of some your well needed psychic powers, forgetting to use said powers for en entire turn and forgetting to move these Falcons too!

A couple of times I used powers (Eldritch Storm/Mindwar) but nothing happened so I didn't mention it in the report.  So except for the last turn, I did use about as much as I could.  That is of course in light of the errors in positioning him.  I did move the Falcons the last turn, but had no viable targets so didn't bother mentioning them.  Also I did realize we were as close as we were in victory points or I may have done some things a bit different the last turn.  I was trying to wrap up as quick as possible to get home.  Anyway I probably could have done enough for a win the last turn if I spent a bit more time planning the last moves carfully.  I probably should have shot with the wraithguard instead of attempting to assist in the assault for example.

Also, looking at your map, it seems to me that you deployed the Avatar between 3'' to 6'' from the table edge where you could instead have put HIM near/behind the right south-north orientated structure where HE still would have been screened from most of the enemy guns and much nearer.

My diagram may be a bit off but that area was outside of the diagonal deployment zones in force.  The space between the armies went from upper left to lower right, so the dead space behind teh building you are referring to was out of my DZ.  If I positioned him farther forward he would have been facing 4 or five missile launchers and about 12 or 13 sniper rifles.  If I didn't get first turn, that may have been enough to take him out.  I played it safe and in the end he did nothing more that deny the enemy victory points.

Also, I didn't read HIM shooting with the Wailing Doom in the last stage of the game, was it you had a total lack of targets?

He did shoot it but missed, so I didn't mention it.

The fact that the SM player had a static gunline army (bar the droppers) didn't help either tough. Had he moved a bit toward you, the Wraithguards and Avatar could have entered in the dance sooner.

But this is an example of the sort of thing that sets him apart from some of the earlier opponents.  He is fairly crafty and the tactics he employed are difficult for me to combat.  I played him with an earlier version of this force during my 0-4 streak and lost to much the same tactics though he was using space wolves at the time.  That game was one of the reasons for the vypers and falcons in my list.  I needed some way of wreaking havoc in the enemy backfield until my wraithguard could get close enough.  In this game, he had very solid ranged shooting that I could not compete with and he knew that so deployed the way he did.

A last question Gwaihir: you said that you used the same list as before but I didn't see the Wraithlord, so I guess that game was played at 1850 or near it?

Nope, still 2000.  The last list had one farseer worth about 100 points, a d cannon battery for another 100 points, and was 9 points shy of 2000.  I dropped the farseer and d cannon and added Fa'alorath.  This put me 1 point over so I had to drop a kiss from one harlie to get under 2000.  I am still trying to figure what to drop to come in at 1850.  That will be a tricky adjustment.

His list was illegal, however. He is only allowed one kill team, and he can't have a chaplain (litanies of hate) drop pod in with a kill team. The kill team takes up an HQ slot, and consists of a captain or librarian and a retinue of 4-9 marines. There is no option for a chaplain, and a character can generally only arrive in a drop pod belonging to their retinue.

Hmmm, maybe the first squad that dropped was something else then.  I am fairly certain that it used litanies of hate to good effect when wiping out my harlies (I neutralized that the next though by consolidating the wraithguard into the squad, he didn't expect that at all and it destroyed his plan from that point forward  ), but I don't think it ever fired the special ammo.  He did attach/detach the leader from the squad though so not sure quite what was happening there.

Their rules are here if you're interested:

Very helpful, yes thank you.

They aren't very efficient, being pricier than veteran squads for little real benefit, but are very cool (I'm currently modelling some for my marine army).

I think this was my opponent's thinking as well.  It is interesting though that the lower S of the ammunition didn't hurt him at all since standard bolters also need 6s to wound, while the added manouverability of an 18" assault weapon could have helped quite a bit against my army.

[Redlion]

Congrats again Gwaihir.  You played well. Especially when you assaulted with your wraithguard unit. That was a good move. I am surprised you didn't fire on them too though, perhaps you were concerned about your charge not making contact after causality removal by your opponent though.

As far as to what to drop to get to 1850, that is going to be tricky.  Regardless, thanks for posting the report, and continued success and best of luck on your future games as well.

[Gwaihir]

Especially when you assaulted with your wraithguard unit. That was a good move. I am surprised you didn't fire on them too though, perhaps you were concerned about your charge not making contact after causality removal by your opponent though.

Exactly, it was about 4" to the lead model, and into cover, so I was concerned about casualtly removal and/or a bad dice roll.  There were only three in the unit so I correctly estimated that I could kill them all on the charge allowing the consolidation into the cc specialists and a scout unit denying both the charge and some shooting.

Adding a new battle report this time against Tau.

The forces:

Eldar

--HQ--

Fa'alorath (Eldrad)
Avatar

--Troops--

2x 10x wraithguard, spiritseer, enhance

--Elites--

6x Dragons, 6x harlies (4 kisses, shadowseer, troupe master with PW)

--Heavy--

2x Falcons, twin shuricannons, all upgrades

--FA--

2x vypers (separate FOC) twin shuricannons, star engines

Tau

--HQ--

Suit with drones and two more suits, missile pods, plasma

--Troops--

3x 11x firewarriors, markerlight, photon grenaded

--Heavy--

Ionhead, Railhead, 3x Rail Suits

--Elites--

3x Crisis Suits, missile pods, TL plasma
8x Stealth Suits, 1 had fusion something or other

--FA--

2x pihrannas

All vehicles had the missles that fire when something is hit by a marker light.

The Mission:

Recon, 15" deployment zones with 24" required buffer between forces, infiltraters allowed.

The table after deployment but before the divination shuffle:



The thin green line were hedges giving 5+ cover, but not blocking line of sight.  One group of firewarriors is behind a brick wall bit of terrain treated as level 1 area terrain giving a 5+ cover save.  The mottled grey features are assortments of buildings and ruins all treated as level 3 area terrain giving 4+ saves.  The off white octagons are reinforced fighting position giving 3+ saves.

I set up my center falcon behind the large ruins in the center of the board to push back his forces.  The flank falcon did the same as did the wraithguard on the right side of the board.  The Avatar was near Fa'alorath, and the two smaller circles are vypers attempting to hide.

He set up the railhead in the lower left corner along with the HQ suit team (small light blue dots are the drones).  The small dots on the left flank are the infiltrating stealth suits.  The other small dots are the firewarrior teams.  The red dots with lines are the rail suits.  The Ionhead, Pirhannas and Crisis suits were all on the lower right.

I was able to shuffle four units.  I moved both Falcons behind the terrain piece in the upper left corner hoping to hide them.  I moved the right wraithguard unit and the Avatar to sort of hide behind the center piece of terrain.

Battle Plan:

This looked like it was going to be tricky.  The basic battleplan was my normal one of crushing a flank then moving to the center.  The board set up was good for this as intervening terrain would cut off his shooting lanes.  He also had a signifcant amount of firepower on the flank I was going to ignore.  The problem was that if I brought the avatar up the flank he would never be of any use as the advance harliquing and dragons would begin to roll up that flank long before he got there.  He needed to come up the center, but that meant facing the guns of almost the entire force without the aid of fortune.  I gave him a wraitguard squad to draw off some power and little else to do, but hope things would go ok.  I also feared the volume of heavy fire I would face once close enough to be effective and expected that I would have to chose to shoot very little with the wraithguard.

Turn 1

The Ionhead, Pihrannas and Suits all move forward on the right side.  My center vyper is downed by the ionhead since I didn't quite move it far enough to hide.  One rail suit was able to spot the Falcon with harlies and shot, penetrated, but fortunately only took out the pulse laser.  (My vehicles were not well positioned apparently).  Another split fire and killed a center wraithguard with the missiles that don't need line of sight.  The middle firewarrior unit moved forward for a better firing position.  The railhead moved to a position in front of the left fire warriors and fired the railgun at the Avatar failing to hit.  The HQ suits peeked around the right side of the building to fire on the left wraithguard.  All but one didn't have range.  One guard may have dropped.  The stealth suits walked forward into the ruins and fired possibly bringin down a guard.  I lost one or two that turn, but don't exactly remember how.  In the assault phase the HQ suits and stealth suits hid and the suits on the other side moved toward the center.

Fa'alorath guided the undamaged Falcon, and fortuned the wraithguard.  The Harlie Falcon zipped forward 36" to the lower left corner of the board, tank shocking the stealth suits on the way, killing the fusion gun guy while the rest wisely stepped aside.  I positioned the Falcon near the board edge so the harlies could get out if the Falcon were shot down, but also preventing any rear armor shots.  The guided Dragon Falcon moved forward 12" and fired the pulse laser at the Railhead immobilizing it.  I had to reroll and destroyed it instead.   The Avatar and  right wraithguard moved forward using the terrain feature to screen them from most of the enemy guns.  The left wraithguard moved forward with Fa'alorath in tow, were forced to leave terrain leaving them open to dangerous AP3 and lower weaponry.  There was little choice though as they could do nothing if they didn't get closer.  The vyper which started in the upper right corner was in trouble.  There was no place it could go where it would be safe because of the tau missiles that ignore terrain.  So it jumped out from cover and fired on the Pirhrannas destroying one.

Turn 2:

The stealth suits move forward to take shots at the wraithguard to no effect.  The HQ suits worried about the Harlie Falcon focus on it and manage 4 glancing hits.  One immobilized the Falcon, but vectored engines keep it alive.  Throughout the game, my opponent used marker lights to fire missiles, but none did anything.  The Ionhead moves back to hover over the ruins it started behind lining up a shot across the board at the Dragons Falcon, but does no damage.  The crisis suits move toward the vyper and bring it down.  The remaining Pirhranna moves toward the center preparing to shoot at the avancing Avatar and wraitguard.  Fire from Rail suit missiles, and railguns as well as firewarriors kill a couple center wraithguard and put a wound on the Avatar.  The stealthsuits and HQ suits attempt to hide behind the same building in the lower left corner and the crisis suits move toward the large ruins in the center of the board.

Fa'alorath Fortunes the wraithguard saving his other powers for the shooting phase, but ends up being out of range.  The Dragon Falcon Moves Forward and toward the center.  It is able to position itself so the Dragons can hop out 1" away from the stealth suits and with the building blocking line of sight from every other Tau units.  The dragons manage a rare, safe volley followed by survival until the next turn.  They kill a bunch of stealth suits which are then finished off by the immobilized Falcon.  The Dragon Falcon takes a shot across the board at the Ionhead stunning it.  The wraitguard and Fa'alorath move forward on their side angling for the firewarriors on that side while hugging the forrest which is cutting off shots from the rest of the tau army.  The Avatar and his escorting guard move forward hoping to chare the remaining Phiranna using it to pull them close to assault.  Saving a movement phase could be enough to keep them alive long enough to get into cc.  The Avatar is close enough for the charge and destroys it, but the guard aren't.  The harlies are able to move, fleet and charge engaging the HQ suits in cc and are close enough to consolidate into the fire warriors if the combat goes well.  It doesn't, the two drones go down and one suit is wounded.  The troupe master has his mind on other things and doesn't feel like killing today.  Two harlies die to the return blows, the suits stand fast.

Turn 3

  the Avatar goodbye.  The Rail Suits kill it on their own.  The crisis suits move toward the gap between the right fire warriors and center fire warriors and kill a couple of the right wraithguard.  In the assault phase the jump back and are in the gap between the brick wall and ruins.  Other shooting doesn't do a whole lot.  The harlies kill two more suits then hit and run toward the middle of the board hoping to engage the center firewarriors then hop off of them and engage the Rail suits.

Fa'alorath fortunes the squad and guides the Falcon.  The dragons hop inside and the Falcon moves forward preparing to shoot at the Ionhead again, this time it does nothing.  The left wraithguard advance toward the firewarriors and last HQ suit.  Fa'alorath does the same angling more toward the center and an assualt against some drones that are pinned in the wreckage of the second pirhanna.  He assaults, accomplishes nothing, but takes no wounds either.  Combinded fire from the wraithguard and immobilized Falcon kill the HQ suit.  The Falcon cause three of the wounds and the wraithguard were only able to cause one.  The two harlies move toward the center, but a bad fleet roll leaves them unable to assault their intended target.  They are forced to assault the left firewarriors killing three and losing two of their number in return.  The shadow seer is apparently sleep walking or something.  The centerwraithguard squad moves toward the crisis suits and fire.  One is instakilled and another takes two wounds.  One remains and passes its leadership test.

Turn 4

The last crisis suits fails his last man standing check and runs off the board.  The ionhead moves toward the center and opens up on the wraithguard as do two squads of firewarriors and the Rail suits.  No wraithguard remain from that squad.  The 8 remaining firewarriors kill off the last two harlies (two wounds inflicted, both saves fail).  Harlies had managed to kill 3.  Fa'alorath kills a drone.

The Dragon Falcon moves to a position behing the large center terrain piece preparing to move out and drop the Dragons for a volley on the Ionhead the following turn.  Fa'alorath fails to kill the last drone in cc.  The remaining wraithguard squad moves toward the 6 remaining fire warriors which had been assaulted by the harlies, shoot but kill none thanks to the hard cover.

Turn 5:

The Rail suits have no targets so move backward to the board edge lining up a shot on the immobilized Falcon.  The ionhead moves forward a bit (it is about 6" from the terrain piece which the Falcon and fire dragons are hiding behing) and fires on the remaining wraithguard killing one.  The wraithguard had a cover save because they were behind some vehicle wreckage.  Only the smaller squad of fire warriors are able to shoot at the wraithguard, but they kill none.  The last drone and Fa'alorath hurl insults at each other some more.

The Falcon moves forward hovering over the terrain and the dragons disembark.  They drop the ionhead and its wreckage blocks line of sight between the remaining fire warriors and the dragons.  The dragons will again be safe the round after their volley.  The Falcon kills two Rail suits with its pulse laser, the last one passes its leadership check.  The wraithguard move forward then charge the firewarriors who inflict no casualties, but manage to make four armor saves losing none of their members in the process.  The think Fa'alorath finally kills the last drone.

Turn 6:

The last rail suit fails its last man standing test and runs off the board.  We call the game becuase all he has left are three firewarriors squads two of which are completely unscathed but also without any targets.  The last has been damaged and is in cc with 7 wraithguard and their seer.

Had we finished the game, I would have had a wraithguard unit and a Falcon in his DZ getting double VPs for about 1200 points, Fa'alorath, the dragons and immobilized Falcon would push this total up to about 1,500.  My opponent at best had three squads of fire warrios for a little over 300, perhaps as much as 350 points.  If one fire warrior died in the assault with the wraithguard, then that squad would be below half and his total would have been under 300.

The game resulted in a crushing victory for the Eldar even though few units remained.

[Gwaihir]

As soon as the forces of craftworld Fa'alnor drove off the Tau incursion, reports indicated that a Black Templars force was landing on the very same battle field.  Reinforcement were called for and once again the wraith constructs controlled by the souls of fallen Eldar warriors are called to battle.

Eldar Force

Unchanged from the last battle

Black Templar Force

--HQ--

Emperor's champion with +1S/-1I vow
2x Chaplains with Litanies, serivtors, purity seals, other stuff

--Troops--

2x 20x man squads with mix of marines and neophytes

--Elites--

10x Swordbreatheran in drop pod (not sure their FOC)
Venerable Dread with assault cannon, heavy flamer, DCCW in drop pod

--Fast Attack--

10x Jumpacks
2x individual speeders with asscannons and heavy bolters.

--No Heavies--

The mission:

None really, just kill.

The Board After Deployment but before divination shuffle:



I started with two Falcons on the right hoping to encourage him to put some forces there as well.  He obligingly responded with two speeders and the jump packs all on that side.  The two large enemy squads were joined by chaplains and the squad in the center was joined by the EC.  I shuffled the Falcons over to the other side planning to deal with the closest large squad first if possible.

The Battle Plan

I can ignore the jumpack unit and the speeders for the first turn or two because they are too far away to cause harm.  I want to focus on the large squad on the left preparing it for a charge by the Harlies, Avatar and maybe some wraithguard.  I will ignore the large center squad and not help it advance faster by shooting at it.  I will pull away as it approaches.  It should be irrelevant until turn 5 or 6 if I do things right.

Turn 1

Fa'alorath fortunes the Avatar and guides a Falcon and Vyper.  The other Vyper zips up the board edge and hides behind the ruins in the upper left corner.  The three vehicles shoot at the left side of the left squad killing 3 or 4.  The squad advances and is stretched out along the edge of the forrest.  The two wraithguard squads do nothing.

The speeders and jump packs move directly toward the right waithguard squad and the speeders kill one with the assault cannons.  They were at the limit of their range and one was all the asscannons could reach.  The heavy bolter shots were all saved.  The two large foot squads moved forward staying out of terrain and being sort of funneled by the forrest on one side and the ruins on the other.

Turn 2

The plan is looking a bit iffy.  If I shoot the squad again, it will likely assault me the following turn.  I decide to delay.  Eldrad forturnes the Avatar and the left wraithguard then attaches to that squad in case a droppod  lands close enough to try to snipe him.  The second vyper joins the first behind the ruins waiting for something to do.  The two Falcons use their vectored engines to shift sides preparing to deal with the speeders.  The line up against the board edge rear to rear so that arriving droppods wont have rear armor shots on both of them.  The Avatar moves into the open in front of the lower left corner building.  Both wraithguard squads move away from the avancing templar units which may have been able to charge the next turn.  Eldar forces are starting to bunch up by the left corner building and the reinforced fighting position next to it.  No shooting or assaul this turn.

The swordbretheren arrive behind the lower left corner building and hide behind their pod.  They are still able to take some potshots at the wraithguard squad but the fortuned squad suffers no wounds.  The speeders and jumppacks move forward from the other side and shoot at the Dragons Falcon taking off the pulse laser in the process.  The speeders and jumptroops are now in a nice tight cluster on the right sight of the large ruins near the center of the board.  The large left foot squad enters the forrest headed for the Avatar.  This is the shortest route to the point where I am retreating to and the other large squad can stop me from switching directions as I try to stay away.  Unfortunately for the squad, the forrest is exceedingly think and the squad will be hacking its way through for a while.

Turn 3:

Fa'alorath again fortunes the Avatar and his own squad and dooms the newly arrived sword bretheren.  The wraithguard advance, fire then charge as does the Avatar.  After the smoke clears only a powerfist remains.  It tries to instakill Fa'alorath, but fortune saves him.  The other wraitguard sqad continues to pull back and ends up near the rear board edge by the reinforced fighting position.  The Dragon Falcon cannot shoot but moves forward, turns and exposes its weak rear armor to the speeders and the firedragons hop out.  The Harlie Falcon moves to retain skimmers moving fast benefit and lines up to shoot the other speeder.  The shots are fired and one speeder is downed while the second is stunned.  The vypers move out from behind cover skirting the rear of the enemy DZ while moving toward the centerpoint of the long-board edge hoping to shoot at the stunned speeder the next turn.

The venerable dread drops in and prepares to shoot at the Harlie Falcon, but fails to cause any damage.  The jumpack squad shoots at the Dragons and assaults them and their Falcon.  Between pistol shots and the assault, all Dragons die, the Falcon loses a shuricannon; only one remains.  The large squad on the left advances slowly through the forrest while the squad in the center continues its advance as well.  The last sword brother dies and the Avatar consolidates toward the large squad which is now partially out of the forrest and thinks about assaulting them.  The wraithguard avance into the builidng to support the Avatar.

Turn 4

The vypers try to line up a shot on the last lanspeeder but would have to move more than 12" to do so, so again they do little more than move.  The harlies hop out of their Falcon and sprint toward the jetpack squad.  Their Falcon shoots at the dread and destroys its assault cannon.  The other Moves to the other side of the jetpack squad, shoots at the landspeder with its last shuricannon and destroys it.  After moving to ensure they wouldn't be charged by the large approaching center squad, the right wraithguard squad unloads on the vendred with 9 shots.  [sarcasm]Suprisingly they manage to destroy it.[/sarcasm]  Fa'alorath had fortuned the Avatar, and Guided and Fortuned the wraithguard.  The Avatar advances toward the squad struggling in the woods and the wraithguard move further into the building to shoot at the squad before the Avatar charges.  Fa'alorath separates from the wraithguard and thinks about mindwarring the chaplain only to realize he already used all his powers.   The harlies assault the jumpack squad, but due to a poor fleet have a kill zone of only four models, one of which was a powerfist.  All four die and the harlies consolidate into the rest of the squad.  The Avatar forgot to charge and is standing there in the open.  The wraithguard wanted to fire, they really did, but the problem is that if they did the templar player would choose the direction to move and he coould move in just about any direction thanks to the positioning of my troops.  He could have ensured that my Avatar would not charge, so I was forced to not shoot.

The squad in the forrest hopes to finally extricate itself from the tangled mess and to assault the nearby Avatar, but a voice from above says "you'll roll four ones", and the first two of the four obediently show themselves.   The other squad moves forward again but still is not in range to charge anything.  A hail of fire from the forrest squad fails to wound the Avatar.  Time to assault and again the voice from above predicts the third and fourth ones.  Sixes are the result instead.  All ruch forth to assault the Avatar, but in their haste they get in the way of the chaplain who won't get to participate for quite some time.  The Avatar kills a couple and takes no wounds in return.  Consolidation and still the Chaplain doesn't get to play.  Meanwhile the shadowseer has finally awakened and kills three jumppacks, the rest of the squad fails to rend, but the marines fail 3 armor saves out of four and the squad is gone.  The harlies come through unscathed.  They consolidate toward the Falcon with the single remaining shuriken cannon.

Turn 5:

Fa'alorath fortunes the Avatar and the Wraithguard and dooms the squad locked with the Avatar then pulls back from the fight.  The vypers continue to do nothing worth noting which my opponent takes note of.  "Your vypers haven't done anything," to which I respond "except deny you 150 victory points".  The right wraithguard  pull back from the large center squad again and shoot and destroy the dred's droppod.  The harlies move toward the center squad but are unable to get into charge range.  The Falcons move to line up shots on the center squad, but don't shoot this turn not wanting to help that squad be useful.  The left wraithguard charge in to support the Avatar and a bunch more marines die.  All attacks are agains fruitlessly directed at the Avatar.  A wraithguard model consolidates into the chaplain again limiting ability to contribute.

The center squad is finally in position to do something as the big assault is close enough (thanks to wraithguard consolidation moves) to assaul and it rushes straight toward the assault.  Several wraithguard fall, the emperor's champion is wounded by the Avatar, some marines from the first large squad die and the Avatar remains unscathed.

Turn 6

Fa'alorath dooms the depleted marine squad.  The one that had just charged hasn't taken a single casualty.  Then decided to play with the first droppod.  He wants to stay away from any newly emerged victorious consolidation moves which may lock him and kill him.  He destroys the pod in cc.  The vehicles have nothing to shoot, the harlies are too far away to charge, the right wraithguard have nothing to do except get further away from the combat.  The Avatar kills the emperor's champion, more marines in the now much smaller squad die, the unfortuned Avatar is taken down to one wound and only a single wraithguard remains.  They are also outnumbered 2:1 and lost the combat so have to take saves, but pass them.

More marines die, but so do the Avatar and last wraithguard from the first squad.

Game Over

A full squad of guard, both Falcons, the harlies, Fa'alorath and both vypers remained.  Eldar had 1300+ points on the board.  One marine squad was below half, both chaplains were full points and the other marines squad was unscathed bringing the marine total points left to 800 or so points.  Eldar margin of victory was more than 400 points.

This brings my record with this army since dropping the multiple wraithlords to 7 wins, 0 losses and 2 draws with a current streak of 9 games without a loss.  This is much better than my general win loss ratio which is much closers to 50/50.

[Starrakatt]

   Wow. You really seems get to grip with your army now.

First Battle: Tau

   The battle VS Tau was well fought, totally denying him on the right flank and grinding him down troughout the game unit by unit while succeeding to limit his return fire.
   It was bad tough for the Avatar and center Wraithguard squad. On the other hand, tough your Harlies underperformed (they DID tie some units in CC however and I believe they did bought you some time), your Dragon unit really shined troughout the game taking a heavy toll over the Tau force and surviving unscathed. Bravo!

   Altough you succeeded in massacring him, which mean that your strategy wasn't too bad  , there's some things I would have done differently tough.
   Well, in fact not many things. From my perspective, it seems that the main flaw on your battle plan was litterally your positioning after the Divination redeployment.

   Tough you did deny him the right flank, you ended up with your unfortuned and unsupported Avatar and right WG unit right in the center of the board where the Tau player had the opportunity to gather overwhelming firepower.
   Once in short range, it took the Tau about one massive volley to obliterate these two, which may have survived it had they been fortuned by Fa'alorath.
   Had you put the Avvy or one WG unit in the center right from the start, everthing would have been fine for you could have save a shuffle for your Farseer.
   But I digress, since it wasn't what happened and they still diverted some firepower from your left flank.

   One last note: If your Harlequin Falcon really got penetrated the first turn, then the Harlies should have been forced to disembark and remount at your first turn, denying you the ability to use the Star Engine.

Second Battle: Black Templars

   Your long awaited game VS that Templar player was rewarding after all, since you managed to totally thwart his battle plan. Well done on that.
   You seems to have made good use of your, how could I put it, non firepower? You did very well against his vehicles, easily destroying them with overwhelming and localised heavy shooting, using superior mobility to run circles around his force.

   Your opponent was right tough, your Vyper really didn't contribute to the game at all, chasing targets all over the board but never managing to get in sight or range and generally being the bad places a the bad time, which frankly surprised me, since they do have Star Engines. But you yeah, you did preserve them, effectively denying VPs.

   However, being two of four units in your entire army that could have put some firepower to good use along with your Falcons.
   The one place where I see they could have been helping a bit is in range of the left big Templar squad that got to assault the Avatar. Well, if you hadn't forgot to declare your charge with the Avvy that's it.
   Really, without that 'small' oversight, that volley from your Guided WG (imagine it backed up by 12 Shurican shots) on that Doomed unit would have been totally devastating, probably crippling it enough so that you would have been able to wipe it off the map in the following CC rounds.
   But congratulations, you didn't forgot to use your Seer's power at a critical time. Good for you.

   Also, that: ''You shall roll four ones!'' thing was funny as hell, lol! Too bad that didn't work tough, then there would have been much rejoicing indeed (or grinding of teeth depending of PoV).

   On the right flank, the units you brought to the task did what they are paid for and performed well overall, too bad they didn't see much more of the battle, but then I guess it was too risky to come too close of the center units and I think you did well in preserving them.
   One question: After crushing the Assault Marines on the right flank, why didn't you remount the Harlies in a Falcon for repositioning to give you a charge in the last turn?

   My guess is that you tried to do this on foot but didn't get in range (as you said), but as you described it, they really could have boarded on of the Falcon to pull off this move.
 
  Overall, I think you played well and deserve that victory. Congratulation for both games and keep up the good work.

   And more batreps, oh yes my precious, good, good battle reports are always, always welcome, yesss...

   Starky 

[Gwaihir]

Well, in fact not many things. From my perspective, it seems that the main flaw on your battle plan was litterally your positioning after the Divination redeployment.

Can't argue with this, sort of ironic isn't it.  Part of the problem was my positioning before divination which in some ways limited what I could do with the divination.  The center Falcon sort of prevented me from deploying wraitguard there early, but as a Heavy I had to put it down first.  I put it there to limit his deployment options.  In recon I like to push the opponenet back if possible.  This was also the reason for the squad deploying to the far right, but as you say this ended up preventing me from redeploying in the best way possible.

The other issue is that in both games, I used enhance instead of conceal.  The center wraithguard would not have benefited much from fortune because a lot of shots would have punched right through the armor.  I have been experimenting with enhance and found that it is very useful, but the trade off is that it makes getting to enemy lines much more tricky.  The game against deathwatch probably was a tie instead of a victory because my guard moved so slowly advancing through cover because they didn't have conceal.

As you say, even though they didn't do much the center squad took some heat off the flank which is sort of where the battle was won.  The Avatar absorbed a lot of fire allowing the guard to live one more turn, kill two suits, and watch the third run off the board, a key turning point.

One last note: If your Harlequin Falcon really got penetrated the first turn, then the Harlies should have been forced to disembark and remount at your first turn, denying you the ability to use the Star Engine.

   I am not used to getting penetrated so I totally forgot about that.  I feel horrible.

Your opponent was right tough, your Vyper really didn't contribute to the game at all, chasing targets all over the board but never managing to get in sight or range and generally being the bad places a the bad time, which frankly surprised me, since they do have Star Engines. But you yeah, you did preserve them, effectively denying VPs.

 

Yeah, I never quite figured out what exactly I wanted to do with them.  Which resulted in me doing nothing with them except killing one neophyte in the first round of shooting.

One question: After crushing the Assault Marines on the right flank, why didn't you remount the Harlies in a Falcon for repositioning to give you a charge in the last turn?

   My guess is that you tried to do this on foot but didn't get in range (as you said), but as you described it, they really could have boarded on of the Falcon to pull off this move.

Actually I think they did hop aboard again for a turn, but couldn't quite remember the particulars so I didn't mention it in the report.  When the second large marine squad charged, it ended up too far away to do anything so the harlies just got out again the last turn to be counted for VPs.  I was planning a full volley against that squad with the other wraithguard, both vypers, the falcons and a possible charge with the harlies on the last turn, but unfortunately had some wraithguard in the close combat close enough to allow the squad to charge.  That ruined my plans for the final turn.

It also shows the major flaw in the Black Templar list.  The two large squads can be completely ignored.  Just destroy the rest of the list and run away from them and you won't lose.  You can effectively use your whole army against half of his while ignoring the half that can't hurt you unless it is in cc, but moves so slow (if you don't shoot it) that it won't be able to catch you and get you into cc.