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Author Topic: 1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire  (Read 2110 times)

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Offline Wyddr

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1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire
« on: July 23, 2015, 09:12:56 PM »
1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar: The Big Guns Never Tire

In the quiet solitude of a wraithbone forest, where no leaf stirs, Anathiel Voidspeaker waits for illumination. She reaches forth with her mind and brushes against the mysteries of the Infinity Circuit. She listens to the dead as they whisper.

"The galaxy is in chaos." They speak in half-heard whispers, things remembered as a dream. "The Changer of the Ways laughs in his labyrinthine throne."

"It has always been the way." Anathiel whispers back. "You do not remember. You are dead."

"We remember." Their is no reproach, no pride in their words. They are simply correcting her. "This time is different."

"War is unchanged." Anathiel says, to herself as much to them. "We will prevail as we always have."

"Not always." The dead whisper, cold as the void. "This time is different."

Anathiel withdraws from her contact and opens her eyes. The garden has not stirred. There are many meanings to what the dead say, many fates that might be made known. The words, however, will remain with her always. "This time," she says softly, layering the words of time as instance and time as span together into a single sound, "is different."


It's been a long hiatus from actually playing games (a couple months) which was largely due to my rushing to finish a third novel (bought my bookyet? Buy it, damn you!), but at long last I got a chance to sit down with my friend, the Eldar player, and give both the new Space Marine Book and the new Eldar Book a test run.

Imperial Fists Combined Arms Detachment
Lysander
3 Assault Centurions w/Hurricane Bolters, 1x TL Meltagun, 2x TL Flamers
--in Land Raider Crusader ("The Bastion of Terra") w/Multimelta

Tactical Squad Attica (10) w/Grav Cannon, Grav Gun, Vet (Grav Pistol, Meltabombs)
--in Rhino
Tactical Squad Macedon (10) w/Grav Cannon, Grav Gun, Vet (Combiflamer, Powerfist)
--in Drop Pod (Deathwind Launcher)

Storm Talon w/Skyhammer Missiles
Dreadnought w/Multimelta, Hvy Flamer
--in Drop Pod

7 Devastators w/ 4x Lascannons
Thunderfire Cannon

Eldar Mechanized Invasion Force
Combined Arms Detachment
Farseer on Jetbike w/Singing Spear (Guide, Doom, Mind War, Courage-boosting Power; Eye on Distant Events trait)

10 Guardians w/Shuricannon (+Warlock w/Conceal + Destructor)
--in Wave Serpent (TL Shuricannon, Shuricannon)
10 Guardians w/Shuricannon (+Warlock w/Conceal + Speedy power)
--in Wave Serpent (TL Shuricannon, Shuricannon)
10 Guardians w/Shuricannon (+Warlock w/Conceal + Jinx)
--in Wave Serpent (TL Shuricannon, Shuricannon)

Falcon w/Brightlance, Hull Shuricannon
Fire Prism Squadron (2)

Aspect Host (+1 BS)
6 Fire Dragons w/Exarch
8 Warp Spiders w/Exarch
8 Swooping Hawks w/Exarch

Terrain, Mission, and Deployment
The board's chief terrain feature was a forest that stretched across the center of the board from about mid-board to the east. In the Northwest there was a large hill and a small, rubble-pile hill. In the Northeast there were some boulders and ridges. In the Southeast there was a frozen lake and some more rocks. In the Southwest there was a bunker and two trenches. Board center also had a very large rock formation.

The Mission was The Big Guns Never Tire with 4 objectives. One went behind the bunker in the southwest, one went behind the big hill in the northwest, one went about board center by the edge of the forest, and one went deep in the northeast quadrant.

I won the pre-game roll. Deployment was Vanguard Strike, so I picked the southwest corner for my DZ, seeing that the trenches and bunker would work very well for my firebase units. Accordingly, the Devastators deployed on the rampart atop the bunker (which the Techmarine bolstered) and the TFC went in the trench as far back towards my board edge as possible, in order to get the most out of that wonderful long range it has. The Land Raider deployed as far forward as possible, just east of the TFC trench, whereas the Rhino deployed behind the bunker, using it for cover. The Drop Pods and Storm Talon would deploy in reserve, as usual.

The Eldar deployed in their parking lot of Grav Tanks, as is their usual habit. Wave Serpents in Front, Falcon (with Dragons) and the Fire Prisms in back. The Jetseer lurked behind the tanks, hidden from LOS. The Spiders and Hawks were held in reserve to deepstrike.

Deployment


Imperial Fists Deployment
Eldar Deployment
The Board

Turn 1
The Eldar do not steal the initiative, so I get things started. The Land Raider heads straight for the Eldar lines, cruising 12" right up to the forest and firing its multimelta/Assault Cannons at the closest Wave Serpent, which jinks and prevents a penetrating hit. The Rhino goes flat-out to catch up with the Land Raider, and they are both in good position to get where I want them to be next turn, barring any mishap. Tac Squad Macedon drops in its pod atop the NW objective. I did this for two reasons: (1) I could lock that objective down with Objective Secured pretty easily, since the squad and the pod's Deathwind would be able to cope with any late-game objective stealers pretty well and (2) *if* my opponent wanted to push my off that objective, it would take a lot of doing to do so and would divert forces from his main column. I also hoped the grav weapons could be brought to bear to support any mid-field firefight that developed, if it came to that. 

The Devastators try to take out the Falcon, but only shake it and take off hull point thanks to Jink. The Thunderfire Cannon dropped a lot of explosions right on the Farseer's head, taking off two wounds (ooo! so close!), and that really ought to teach him not to fly around by his lonesome.

Top of Turn 1


Tac Squad Macedon hits the turf!
Hmmm...we look outnumbered, captain!

In the bottom of turn one, my opponent takes a hard look at Macedon camped on that objective supported by a Deathwind Launcher and decides "the hell with it" and moves everything east (that, incidentally, is an advertisement for a Deathwind Launcher right there--his exact words were "I don't want to deal with that deathwind"). A lot of Shuricannons shoot at the Rhino, taking off a hull point and shaking it. The Fire Prisms score a pen on the Land Raider, shaking it as well. I dutifully roll Lysander's leadership to ignore the effects of the pen on my Centurions and I roll and 11. Yep. Lucky me--snap shots for them next turn. Bleh.

The Falcon, with its cargo of Fire Dragons, was too far away to get a good shot at the Land Raider this turn, so the aspects bided their time until next turn.

Bottom of 1


You see! We have shifted *slightly* to the left! Such Eldar Trickery!

Turn 2
In my next turn, I get both the Dread (Brother Hektor) and the Storm Talon from reserve. The Dread I drop directly in the enemy backfield and he uses his heavy flamer to try and hit the Farseer while shooting the Fire Prisms, but it doesn't work--the Farseer is undamaged and the multimelta misses the primary targets. Still, there *is* an angry dread in their faces. The Storm Talon zooms on from the eastern side of my deployment zone (in reterospect, I should have come in from the west--ah well) and tries to kill the Falcon, taking off another hull point and forcing another jink. The Devastators target Wave Serpent 1 (not 2, as depicted in the map) and take off two hull points and immobilize it, despite it jinking. The Land Raider moves forward and takes a pot-shot at Wave Serpent 3, which forces a jink and (I think) even manages to take off a hull point, despite the snap-shots. Lysander and the Centurions disembark, moving forward for a charge, but their meltagun does nothing against the closest Wave Serpent.

The Rhino tries to move forward but promptly immobilizes itself on a tree (Dammit! The ONE TIME I don't buy a dozer blade!), meaning my tacticals will not be seeing much action this turn. They deploy anyway, since the Rhino only has 1 hull point left and its a good placeholder for that objective at the moment. I'm *just* out of range for my Grav Cannon to take a shot. The other tactical squad, Macedon, juggles its configuration a bit to get the grav cannon into range for future turns. This makes me kinda wish I had a plasma cannon, instead. Oh--the Thunderfire Cannon hits a bunch of tanks with its high-strength shot, but doesn't manage any damage. It *may* have caused a tank to jink--I don't remember.

Finally, Lysander and his buddies try to charge the closest Wave Serpent...and fail. Sadly, had I *remembered* that Assault Centurions have Move Through Cover and that the ability transfers to the rest of the unit, they would have made it. Alas. They will now get pounded in the face by a million shuriken. Let's see how they do.

Top of Turn 2


Surprise!
DEATH FROM THE SKIES...errr...hull points. Hull Points from the skies.
The Role of "Assault Centurions" will be played by "unpainted Armored Sentinels"

In the bottom of two, the Eldar player goes all-in. All transports disgorge their cargo of guardians and close in on Big L and his assault centurions. The Fire Dragons, meanwhile, hop out and make a Battle-focused Bee-line for the Land Raider. The Hawks don't come in and the Spiders, trying to ambush the Storm Talon, scatter into a mishap and go back into ongoing reserve. The rest of the turn goes like this:

The Farseer Dooms the Centurions and Lysander. The Warlock fails to Jinx them.
Lysander and his buddies are shot with 60 Shuriken Catapult shots, 33 Shuriken Cannon Shots, 18-ish Serpent Shield shots, a pulse laser, and a brightlance. All with Doom.
After missing pretty much the first 8 saves in a row, killing off Lysander and two Centurions (well, not quite that bad, but really the first unit of Guardians and the first Wave Serpent killed them all), everybody else can't so much as scratch the paint on that last guy, who makes about a gazillion saves in a row (many of them 5+ cover saves, too!).

He then promptly rolls an 11 and falls back. (Where were these 11s when I was rolling for charge range?)

Then, the Fire Dragons demonstrate just how terrifyingly good they are these days by wrecking the land raider without breaking a sweat. That used to be a 50/50 deal, but not anymore. BS5 + Assured Destruction? Ouch! Add in Battle Focus? Bad news, Eldar-fighters. Bad news indeed.

Bottom of Turn 2


Ummm...uh-oh.

Turn 3
After a pretty dismal turn 2, I now need to capitalize upon the fact that all the squishy eldar are out of their transports. I swear, playing the Eldar sometimes feels like being a seagull cracking snails.

But I digress.

Anyway, the first problem I face is to figure out what to do with the Storm Talon. It can't zoom and have a good target this turn, even though that would keep it relatively safe. I opt, instead, to go into hover mode and fly behind the Fire Prisms, shooting one down. The next problem is presented by all those grav tanks blocking line of sight selectively to various units (as well as the forest), meaning I can't focus fire as I'd like. Now, the Thunderfire Cannon doesn't care about this--it obliterates one squad of Guardians with little trouble. The Devastators put some hull points on one of the transports--not sure which, but you can bet it jinked in order to survive (I was scoring 3-4 pens/glances on every volley with my Devs all game, and those sneaky little grav tanks just kept dodging!). The Tac Squads each did as much damage to the other two guardian units as it could. I would have moved closer with Tac Squad Attica (the Rhino group), but they only rolled a measly 2 or 3 on their difficult terrain test. Anyway, between the tacs and the storm bolters on both the Dread-pod and the rhino, I kill about half of both other guardian squads. Neither of them run, though.

Not to be counted out, the Assault Centurion shoots and charges the Fire Dragons, killing three of them and running them off. Sadly, the big guy is too slow to catch them and is left sheltering in the forest. Finally, the Dreadnought stomps over to the Farseer and smashes him flat, scoring me Warlord (though my opponent already has Warlord and First Blood at this point).

Top of 3


The Tacs get stuck in the mud
The Storm Talon takes the Fire Prism from behind.

In the bottom of Turn 3, the Hawks and the Spiders show up, both dropping into the enemy DZ (as suits me just fine). The Hawks drop their grenades on Attica, and I continue my run of terrible armor saves by losing three guys or something. Sheesh. The Fire Dragons rally and the Warp Spiders are able to get a couple shots on the Dreadnought's rear armor, destroying him. One Wave Serpent, taking advantage of the fact that the Storm Talon is hovering, shoots it down, but its crash-and-burn hits nothing. Everybody else (everybody) tries to kill that lone Centurion, but that little dude just will. not. die. He passes all his saves with flying colors.

The remaining guardians get into the remaining mobile Serpent and the Falcon. The Falcon and the empty Serpent cruise South, looking to flank my firebase.

Bottom of Turn 3


The Aspect Warriors play clean-up in the DZ

Turn 4
In the fourth turn, things are looking pretty good as we're moving towards the late-game. I've got 3 objectives locked down, I've got the enemy clustered in his DZ, and I still have some weapons active, but I've lost a *lot* of valuable stuff. My offense is flagging. I need to stop those guardians from getting into my DZ, so I turn to the Devs and the TFC. The Devastators shoot the Fire Prism (I don't like AP 3 blast templates) and forces a jink and takes a hull point, but that's it. The TFC, though, nails the Falcon and destroys it, spilling those guardians back into the ditch. 

I fire grav weapons from both tacs at the immobilized serpent, but nobody secures a kill. Lastly, the remaining Centurion charges Wave Serpent 2--the other one with guys in it--and causes a massive explosion that kills 3 Hawks, a Spider, and a couple more guardians, leaving 3 or 4 alive. That guy is earning his keep.

Top of Turn 4


This is a weirdly orthogonal crater. Don't ask.
The Thunderfire Cannon knocks out a tank.

In the bottom of Turn 4, the Warp Spiders and Fire Dragons advance on the mid-board, with the Spiders putting enough shots into the Tacs there (along with that immobilized wave serpent) to knock them down to 4 guys. I make a morale check and what do I roll? Yup--11. They fall back.

Back in the Eldar DZ, the Hawks assault the Drop Pod there and embarrass themselves, only taking off 1 hull point. The guardians consolidate atop the objective.

Finally, in the south, the remaining guardians hop into their third ride of the game and fly that Wave Serpent towards the center objective. Hmmm...

Bottom of 4


Aspects Advancing!
The Hawks Fumble

To Be Continued...
« Last Edit: July 24, 2015, 09:28:18 AM by Wyddr »

Offline Wyddr

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Turn 5
We are getting towards game end, here, so I need to put a stop to this Eldar assault. The Devastators wipe out the last Fire Prism. The Tacs rally and hide behind the Rhino (probably should have gotten inside, actually). Tac Squad Macedon crushes the immobilized serpent with its grav cannon. The thunderfire cannon totally misses its target for once, and the warp spiders go unharmed.

Top of 5


Hey! We killed a thing!

In the bottom of 5, the Warp Spiders zoom forward and kill two more marines (though this time they don't run) and the Fire Dragons torch the Rhino. The Wave Serpent shoots forward to contest that central objective, but my marines are still holding on, so its still theirs for now. Oh, and finally (finally) the Hawks kill the drop pod in their DZ. At this point, the score is 9 (two objectives, Warlord, and 2 Heavy Support Kills) to 5 (One objective, First Blood, Warlord) in favor of myself. I could do with the game ending right now, but sadly, it does not. We move on to turn 6.

Bottom of 5


Lousy Eldar, cramping my style!

Turn 6
Okay, so if I can *just* hold out for another turn or so, I've got this game, but that isn't going to be easy. Tac Squad Macedon gets the Spiders in its sights and kills a bunch of them, but they roll a goodly number of cover saves and so there's three of them left. The Devastator squad blasts the Wave Serpent down, spilling the guardians inside (I had forgotten they were in there, actually!) while the tacs shoot at the Fire Dragons, doing a wound to the Exarch.

The Thunderfire Cannon then seeks to do its business by blasting the Guardians into smithereens (error in the map, actually--I thought I did this next turn). I hit them a bunch of times and kill them all except that damned Warlock, who proceeds to make something like four or five saves in a row. What goes around comes around, I guess.

Top of 6


How is this guy still alive?

In the bottom of 6, the Warp Spiders shoot closer to the Devastator Objective and kill a Dev. The Fire Dragons move forward and wipe out Tac Squad Attica. I am not entirely certain what becomes of the Warlock this turn--he didn't do much, I can tell you that. The Swooping Hawks skyleapt (one guess where they're going next turn). At this point, the score is 9 to 8, advantage to me. I could really, really use the game to end this turn.

I roll a 5, so it doesn't. We keep going (sigh).

Bottom of 6


Turn 7
This turn, I salvage what I can. I wipe out either the Fire Dragons *or* the Warp Spiders, but I'm not sure which. It doesn't really matter, as I do not manage to kill the Warlock (I don't remember why, honestly--perhaps the TFC missed?). Anyway, I don't make the stop.

Top of 7


In the end of the turn, the Swooping Hawks, predictably enough, land on my Devastator Objective and contest it. Game over.

Bottom of 7


Final Score
Eldar: 9 (2 Objectives + First Blood + Warlord + Linebreaker)
Imperial Fists: 6 (1 Objective + Warlord + 2 Heavy Support Kills)

Post Mortem
Wow, what a squeaker! That was a heck of a game, considering how outgunned I was. That was certainly the feeling, too--the Eldar had way more firepower than me. Part of that is the new book (damn, the new Aspects are good!), but a larger part of that is my list. Too many points in that Lysander/Land Raider/Assault Centurion combo to have it go down how it did. The thing is, though, it would be very hard to prevent it going down that way. Even if I make the charge in turn 2, they're still getting drilled the next turn. While I do like Land Raiders against most other armies, they really aren't paying off well against the Eldar, given how crazy good Fire Dragons are and all the (potential) Strength D all over the place.

Anyway, I made a couple mistakes here. First, I really should have ignored that NW objective. *If* my opponent had taken the bait and devoted time and resources to fighting for that, it might have worked out for me, but as it stood, he did not and that left that whole squad sitting on its butt for most of the game, doing nothing. It is situations like that which have me skeptical of grav cannons--great offensive output, but the range is short enough that it can be avoided. For the price, Plasma Cannons are looking pretty good.

Lastly, I mismanaged the Storm Talon, picking a poor route of approach and forcing it to hover for a turn, which killed it. I'm clearly a bit rusty here.

Anywho, it was a fun game and a great workout for the new books. I can see why everybody is talking about the new Eldar--they are a force to be reckoned with. It will take some thinking to come up with a good way for the Marines to counter (you know, that doesn't involve bikes).

Thanks for reading and thanks, as always, to my opponent!

Offline dog_of_war

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Re: 1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire (Part 1)
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2015, 10:36:42 PM »
Awesome read. Love the maps, they make the narrative very easy to follow. You picture descriptions were probably the best part of the whole report and totally made my day.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire (Part 1)
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2015, 09:34:38 AM »
Awesome read. Love the maps, they make the narrative very easy to follow. You picture descriptions were probably the best part of the whole report and totally made my day.

Thanks! I put a good amount of time into these, so I'm glad it worked for you! (if you scroll back through the boards a ways, you'll find a lot more of my reports. As I said, it's been a dry spell)

Offline Irisado

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Re: 1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2015, 06:02:28 AM »
It's great to see a new report from you after a quiet period.  It's even better, from my perspective, that the Eldar won.  That said, I do think that some of the bonuses that the Eldar received in their codex are highlighted in this game as being too good.

This game reminded me a bit more of editions gone by.  No flyers, no ridiculous units like Knights and Wraithknights.  An old school mechanised Marine list with Drop Pods versus mechanised Eldar.  That was nice to see :).

There were some extraorindary moments of good and bad luck on both sides.  The critical part though was, as you highlighted, the Fire Dragons taking out the Land Raider and exposing your primary assault force.  I get the feeling that more smaller transports and a higher model count would have helped you out against all that fire power, but I could be wrong, as I'm very out of date with the way the game plays these days.

Thanks for an enjoyable read :).
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1750 Imperial Fists Vs Eldar, Big Guns Never Tire
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2015, 09:45:45 AM »
It's great to see a new report from you after a quiet period.  It's even better, from my perspective, that the Eldar won.  That said, I do think that some of the bonuses that the Eldar received in their codex are highlighted in this game as being too good.

Thanks! It's good to be back. 7th Edition has struck quite a blow to the 40K scene around here. I went from having about 5-6 regular opponents and tournaments being held every month to 1-2 regular opponents and just about *no* tournaments at all. It's a bummer, especially since I like 7th Edition a lot.

Quote
This game reminded me a bit more of editions gone by.  No flyers, no ridiculous units like Knights and Wraithknights.  An old school mechanised Marine list with Drop Pods versus mechanised Eldar.  That was nice to see :).

Hey! I had a flyer! It just didn't last very long--you might have missed it.  :-\

That said, we're a fairly conservative group. Superheavies are frowned upon and nobody bothers with lots of flyers, really. On the (lately) rare occasions I get in games against randoms down at the LGS, I've never seen more than two flyers at a time. It's just the meta around here.

Quote
I get the feeling that more smaller transports and a higher model count would have helped you out against all that fire power, but I could be wrong, as I'm very out of date with the way the game plays these days.

Yeah, the ultimate problem was that I had far fewer weapons I could apply than the Eldar could. This is a common problem with Marines and always was the case, but Eldar shooting has gotten steadily stronger since 4th Edition whereas Marine shooting has remained basically the same.

I think, had I used my Tac Squads more aggressively (combat squadding them, for instance), I might have been able to make more of an impact. This is sort of the drawback (at least mentally) of using Grav Weapons--they encourage you to hold still, but don't give you enough range that holding still is worth it most of the time. I'm seriously considering Plasma Cannons instead of Grav Cannons. I'll have to test it out.

Quote
Thanks for an enjoyable read :).

You're welcome!

 


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