I went into this game very excited and nervous. Excited because all I have played lately were MEQ armies and nervous because I hardly know the nid codex. All in all the battle went well. Hope you enjoy the description. Sorry, I don't have any pics, but will try to explain well.
My list at 2000 points.
HQ-farseeer on jetbike with fortune, mindwar, runes of witnessing, ghosthelm, witchblade.
Troops--5 wraithguard, warlock with enhance, mounted in TLBL wave serpent.
5 wraithguard, warlock with enhance, mounted in TLBL wave serpent.
1 wraithlord with starcannon, flamer, shuricat.
1 wraithlord with starcannon, flamer, shuricat.
Elites--8 spiders including exarch with withdraw.
Fast Attack--2 vypers with scatter laser and CTM
1 vyper with scatter laser, shuriken cannon, CTM
8 Swooping Hawks including exarch with WOS and Surprise Assault.
HS--2 shadow weavers
1 warwalker with two scatter lasers
His army (sorry I am unfamiliar with the nid codex):
Four big bugs, I believe two tyrants (one winged) and two carnifexs.
Three squads of 8-10 genestealers.
One squad of 25 little bugs that assault 12"
One squad of 20 bugs with guns 18" range.
One squad of 20 bugs with little twin linked guns.
Two squads of three mid sized bugs with fairly large guns (I think these were warriors, the squads had one gun with a 36" range and one with a 24" range).
The mission: seek and destroy, omega level.
The board: 4' x 6'. His side had some ruins on one edge, a couple of forrests near the middle and some trenches near the right. The middle of the board had more trenches. My side had some ruins on the right and left and a couple of forrests in the middle.
This game got interesting before it even started. The escalation rules prevented me from deploying anything at the start of the game. He deployed one squad of stealers to my left, one in the middle and one to the right. The shooty bugs with the 18" guns were in the middle and the other shooty bugs to my right. His big bugs and the 12" assault bugs wre in reserve.
As the game started my opponent began moving everything forward as quickly as possible. He was overloading the right side of the board and was pretty weak on the left. I had no first turn as I had nothing on the board. During turn two he continued moving forward and got all his reserves except the unit with the 12" assault. My turn two I have some units come one. A vyper take a position behind some woods on the right side of the board where he can pop out shoot and pop back. He will have three turns of shooting killing 10-12 of the smaller bugs including a few gene stealers, before succumbing to and assault. My farseer makes it on the board and attempts to mind war a gene stealer on the left side of the board but fails. He wisely draws back to avoid an assault the next turn. One wraithguard squad comes on the board on the left side as well. The shadow weaver and warp spiders also move on that side.
During turn three my opponent continues moving forward. The last squad comes on the left side of the board and start forward. At this point the right side near my board age is crawling with bugs, (my only unit is a vyper hiding behind woods) but the left side has only a carnifax and the 12" assault bugs near the rear and a squad of stealers in the open. During my turn three my walker comes on near the left. A woods separates him from the hordes to his right. A wraithlord comes on in the middle. The plan here was to tie up the shooty squad there which would be unable to hurt him. This would create a big obstruction as he tried to shift toward the left side of the board, giving me time to shoot up the bugs. Between shooting and assault around halft the squad is wiped out, but they are out of synapse range and successfully run away. The genestealers on the left are nearly wiped out by spiders and finished off by the wraithguard who had gotten out of their transport for this purpose. The carnifax on the left took three wounds from the wraithlord and wave serpent.
Turn four my exposed wraithlord is wiped out by stealers. My plan really backfired when the little bugs ran away. Two wraithguard suffer from carnifax shooting. His army begins moving left and the 12" assault bugs move forward. My turn four my farseer attempts to finish off the carnifax with mindwar but fails. The rest of my army comes on. The hawks grenades kill one little shooty bug, their guns take out some of the 12" assault bugs. The two vypers move right up next to the warwalker which also moved forward. They combine to take out two of three warriors in the middle of the board. The other vyper is just about surrounded. I face the choice of trying a full run away move and possible still getting assaulted and likely killed or standing and shootign facing near certain death if I do. I choose the latter and it is killed next turn. The wraithguard get back in their serpent and move forward toward the carnifax which is killed by the wraithlord's starcannon. The spiders are behind the serpent making is difficult for the 12" assault bugs to reach them. The shadow weavers fail me.
Turn five the whole nid army continues shifting left. Two big bugs and the remaining warriors begin shooting. The 12" assault bugs assault my warwalker and gene stealers assault my two vypers. These two units are right next to each other. The warwalkers weapons are destroyed but it isn't and even manages to squash a bug. The gene stealers couldn't jump high enough to hurt the vypers. The wraithlord takes two wounds from shooting and two spiders are killed as well. During my turn the vypers jump to the other side of a nearby building killing a few stealers as the go. The hawks move in kill a few more. The farseer boosts forward to hide behind some woods. Planning to mind war the approaching winged tyrant given the right opportunity. The spiders finish off the 18" shoot nids. The shadow weaver kills a couple of the 12" shooty nids. Two warriors in a second squad fall to more shooting. The hawks finish of the gene stealers in assault but loose half their number in the process. They consolidate into the nids which are finishing off the warwalker. The warwalker is destroyed.
Turn six shooting is almost a complete failure for the nid commander. The hawks are wiped out in assault. Not much else happens. My turn six eight wraithguard try to send the winged tyrant into the warp but only manage to inflict two wounds. One serpent contributes another. The second serpent had been stunned and can't help. The 12" assault nids now number 13, down from 25. I should shoot them with my shadow weavers as one kill will drop them below half and give me some victory points. At the time I had mis counted/calculated and thinking that I wouldn't be able to drop them below half aim elsewhere wasting an opportunity. The dice roll ends the game at this point.
Casualties for eldar:
1 wraithlord w/2 wounds
1 wraithlord dead
1 vyper destroyed
1 war walker destroyed
8 man swooping hawks squad killed
total points around 600.
Casualties for nids:
1 dead carnifax
20 nid 18" shooty nids wiped out
2 10 man gene stealer squads wiped out
3 nid warrior squad below half
3 nid warrior squad below half
1 winged tyrant with three wounds
total points around 800
Result: Draw, I was just a few points from victory, but didn't quite pull it out.
Final thoughts: my opponent's biggest mistake was overloading one side and allowing me to create a stronghold for myself on the left side. My mistakes were several costing me the game. I should have attempted to save my vyper rather than letting it die. I should have paid closer attention to synapse range and not let my wraithlord get hung out to dry. I should have focused on bringing the 12" assault nids below half stregth, I only needed to kill one and had plenty of shooting to have done it. I forgot to move my farseer the last turn preventing me from attempting mind war on the tyrant. This could have killed it. (The way I was rolling mind war it is unlikely though. In fact after the game we rolled for it just out of curiosity. I rolled a one and he a 5) Any of these changes probably could have given me a victory as I was only a few points short. I also really feared his shooting and because of this didn't move to places I probably could and should have. Another problem was that I probably should have taken greater advantage of speed and run away from fights more than I did. I could have avoided assaults longer, giving myselft more points. I sacrificed the hawks unecissarily giving my opponent points I didn't have to give him. It requires a lot of discipline to pull back to stay alive instead of moving forward to kill. The genestealers they killed would have been killed anyway, but I didn't have to loose the hawks in the process.
Anyway, it was a fun game and my opponent was great. When checking to see which bugs were under my blast markers he always came up with numbers higher that I thought should be there. If he had a better angle to check I let him. I am not a jerk though and when it was my turn I said there were fewer bugs under the template than I probably could have. He was a great sport which made the game a lot of fun.
That's it. Sorry about the length.
