Topic: 1,000 pts 10e Crusade - Eldar vs Orks - The Gathering Shroud

[Blazinghand]

For week 4 of our Crusade campaign, I played against my friend's Orks list using my Eldar! Crusade has been a fun way to get into 10th edition 40k. This was a 1,000 point match, and we played The Gathering Shroud from the crusade book.

Army Lists

Orks (my friend)
Warboss in Mega Armor
- 3 Mega Nobz
Warboss
- 5 Nobz
Warboss
- 5 Nobz
10 Boyz
10 Boyz
10 Gretchin
2 Mek Gunz

Eldar (me)
Farseer
Warlock
10 Guardians
10 Guardians
5 Dire Avengers
5 Dire Avengers
5 Swooping Hawks
5 Wraithguard
Falcon
Wave Serpent

Setup
We rolled The Gathering Shroud for our mission, which is table quarters deployment and with objectives in no-man's-land, and gradually increasing difficulty of using stratagems and morale from turn to turn.

Terrain


Deployment zone and objectives. green orks, blue eldar



Deployment



We both deployed in a pretty pushed-up way - we wanted to get onto the objectives in no man's land. notably, my foe was pushed up against his deployment circle in the center, but I was pushed in on the sides. he was planning to charge into the center, and I wanted to split my forces in two rather than push into the middle, since of course he would mulch me

I gave a guardian squad, and a vehicle to each flank. left flank got a wave serpent, right flank got a falcon (with more DAs) and foot DAs. the wave serpent has my waithguard. I also put my swooping hawks on the left. my initial plan was to try to push through on the left, since his nobs looked like they'd have trouble getting to that side

I was going first, which was nice for shooting but not great for the objectives, which are scored at end of battle round. big danger of boyz charging onto objectives and causing problems for me scoring wise

Battle Round 1
Eldar Turn
Here's how things looked after my first turn:


I aggressively pushed up and tried to get objectives
I moved my guardians forward on both flanks. on one, they can get to the objective, but on the other, they can't, so i get them into shooting range. I disembark dire avengers to capture one easy objective, and use my hawks to capture the other easy objective.

I otherwise just move guys around to the side - i want good shots with my wave serpent and falcon
during shooting, I clear out his's grots (this is very important imo - they're cheap and they can score objectives, and I want to make him score objectives with his fighty units intsead) and get one boyz squad down to 1 guy, and weaken the other two boyz squads. I also pick off one meganob, but the shooting from my tanks is kinda unimpressive. I also forget to use my farseer's eldritch blast this turn, lol
overall, I'm pretty happy with this situation, though I know the guardians will die

Ork Turn
Here's how things looked at the end of the first ork turn:




My foe makes big plays here, pushing in on the left flank, commiting his nobs to go after the guardians+warlock and DAs. he also shoots the falcon pretty hard
he has 1 boy left in the left side squad, and he sends it to nab the objective
Falcon is down to 1 wound, and on the right side, his weakened boyz squad put a dent in my guardians



BR1 ends like this, and we each score 10 vpn (hold1, hold2)


Battle Round 2
Eldar Turn
BR2 begins, and here's what it looks like at the end of my turn:



I have my falcon swing around to the left flank and disgorge DAs. WS lets out the wraithguard, who hang back in the center, trying to stay out of range of his mek guns (and basically failing), while getting a shot on meganobs

On the right flank, guardians fall back  and use the "fall back and act normally" strategem - feigned retreat. they shoot into the weaker boyz squad, dropping it to one model, then charge back in, finishing it off with filmy elf punches

I also move the swooping hawks a little back - they were in range for some random shooting last turn and a lost a guy, so I back them up to the furthest back they can go while still capping the objective and while still being able to shoot. In shooting, i clear out meganobz squad and injure a nob on the left flank, and I clear out one boyz squad on the right flank, leaving just one understrength squad of boyz left. (I also clear out the one-boy squad on the left flank)

My foe still has 3 characters, 2 squads of nobz, and his artillery, so in terms of points on the board i'm doing bad but his ability to split up and take objectives here is very bad now, which will eventually matter.

Ork Turn
Now it's bottom of BR 2, ork turn. This is a big turn for my foe, and he uses his Waaaaaaaaaaugh! and here's how things look after his turn




So this turn I got pretty lucky - a couple of things went my way

First off, thanks to the fact that i killed one boyz squad (with a guardian defenders charge, lol), his remaining boyz aren't quite enough to finish my guardians squad. my farseer is alive with 2 wounds after the fighting. Aside from that one boyz squads, his remaining mobile squads are 1 character (retinue killed), and 2 squads of nobz

One squad of nobz pushes up the middle to take on the wraithguard, and it takes out 2 of them. The other pushes to the side and clears out the dire avengers (falcon was finished off by artillery shooting)

His character pushes onto the left side closer-to-me objective and attacks my DAs, but doesn't really have enough attacks to kill them. there are 5 models in the squad, and he gets a few attacks through, but i get an invuln save on one of them

In the end, we're each holding 2 objectives, so we each get +10 vp
I'm definitely behind on board now but I'm feeling like I have a chance, assuming I don't get tabled - his ability to step on multiple objectives here is pretty shakey

here's an action shot of nobs fighting wraithguard



and so now, Battle Round 3 begins with the score tied 20-20


Battle Round 3
Eldar Turn

so I don't have a lot of models left to move here

basically, I destory his character and start working on his last unit of boyz, while trying to at least make it a little annoying for him to come at me

i have my Farseer run away from melee and begin sprinting across the field towards the other objective near him
my reasoning is that his boyz will either need to step off the objective to kill it, or will stand still and maybe by the time the Farseer reaches the other side of the board he can do something there
I clear out his character with some shooting and do my best to get some bodies on the objective on the left flank, hoping i can hold onto it and score 10 points again
at this point my firepower is pretty bad. guardians and dire avengers are my bread and butter, and they're all dead save 2 DAs. i've also lost my falcon and half of my wraithguard - i know I won't be tabling him like I did last game, so it's all objectives from here
now for the bottom of BR 3, it's his turn, and he's got a tough choice to make - he wants to kill all my guys, but he's got a unit of nobz holding an objective, and i've killed basically all his boyz and grots and so on. his only other objective holding unit, the boyz, has to choose between staying on the objective and jumping off to chase my farseer


Ork Turn



basically, he he chases after the farseer but fails to kill it, and also pulls his nobs off of one objective to grab another one, freeing the bigger nobs unit to chase down and kill the wraithguard



i'm down to just the farseer, the wave serpent, and the swooping hawks, but my foe just has 2 units of nobz, a unit of boyz, and his artillery - his ability to cap objectives is bad
also my farseer is doing well on invulns and survives the boyz attention - he gave up some VP here to chase down the farseer, but it didn't work out
we each gain 5 VP for holding a single objective, and score remains tied at the end of BR 3
so, at the top of BR 4, the shroud advances to level 3, which makes some strategems more expensive, etc
this kinda slows down the pace of the game



Battle Round 4
Eldar Turn
Here's how things look after my turn:


my turn is pretty straightforward. Farseer and Wave Serpent both Fall Back, and swooping hawks hold position, shooting at his boyz some more to try to finish them off. I'm just on 1 objective at this point.
I pick off his nobz, so he's down to artillery, 3-man boyz squad, 1 character, and 1 nobz squad
now for the bottom of BR 4

Ork Turn


he moves his nobz up to charge my wave serpent, but whiffs the charge. his character stands on the objective and his boyz walk back to the other objective
I use Phantasm to move my Farseer 7 inches, sensing that he has abandoned a left flank objective
and combined with an Advance next turn, I can get on it
at the end of BR 4, he holds 2, and I hold 1. He scores 15 (hold 1, hold 2, hold more), I score 5
I'm now 10 vp behind him


Battle Round 5


Now BR 5, the final battle round, begins. We roll a 6 on shroud, so most strategems now cost an extra CP, etc

These turns are quick for me since I have so few models left.


Eldar Turn
here's how things look at the end of my turn:




basically, I swing my wave serpent around and between it and the swooping hawks, i kill his boyz unit
and my farseer who has spent the last couple turns running away, is able to Advance and  Strands of Fate for a max advance
he runs and slides onto the objective marker that my foe abandoned previously



the Phantasm 7 inches, plus this turn max advance, catches my foe off guard
now, i hold 2 objectives and he holds 1
the farseer can't be seen by his big guns
and everything he has is too far to get onto objectives or shoot my guys
time for the bottom of BR 5, ork turn, last turn in the game

Ork Turn


He shoots his artillery at my swooping hawks, but they survive. He moves his nob units onto an objective, freeing up his warboss to try to make a 12" charge to catch my farseer (which would win him the game) - he doesn't make the charge!

End of BR 5, I'm on 2 objectives and he's on 1. I score 15 VP, he scores 5: Final total is 45-45

But... I have a fully painted army and he does not, so I get +10 VP, and I win! heheh. If course, in terms of models on the board, I have only a wave serpent, a SH exarch, and a farseer - but a win's a win.

Some end game thoughts:

Overall, 10e feels less lethal than previous editions did, which is a huge improvement imo: being able to run around and hold objectives and put bodies on objectives is important. This was my second game against my Orks friend, and it really came down to the wire. I've gotten used to trying to put pressure on his grots and basic boyz early to reduce his number of units on the board that can run onto objectives.

One very interesting feeling about this mission was how "bow tie" shaped things were. Holding the center, or even your own deployment, didn't matter: you needed to rush out to the flanks. This was tough for me because it meant getting closer to the orks, but it was tough for orks because orks are much slower than eldar, so I was able to shift resources between the two fronts more easily than him. This is one of the more interesting missions I played.

The rising CP costs and morale problems from the mission didn't really affect things much, though they did make things feel a little slower later on.

Overall, a game like this that comes down to the wire is always fun.

[Wyddr]

Looks like a fun game! Thanks for the report!

What kind of Mek Gunz did the ork player take? How much impact did they have?

[Blazinghand]

Looks like a fun game! Thanks for the report!

What kind of Mek Gunz did the ork player take? How much impact did they have?

He had Kustom Mega Kannons, they seemed solid but swingy.

- On the first turn they had high shot count and damage, knocked the Falcon down to 1 wound left
- On the second turn, they rolled low on shot count, but finished it off
- On the third and fourth turn, they pinged some wounds off the wave serpent, getting it pretty low
- On the fifth turn, they were shooting at the swooping hawks, and killed 4 of them (bad rolls on shot count, and one was out of range to shoot anything)

Overall, I think if you're going to take them, definitely take two. Lots of times he'd roll low on shot count for one and was very glad to have two. They seem pretty vulnerable to shooting, and I think I might have benefited from focusing one of them down early.

[Irisado]

I liked your Eldar army.  Aside from the vehicles, it was very reminiscent of an old Rogue Trader skirmish force.  Either way, Orks are a tough match up for Eldar because it's often not possible to kill enough of them fast enough.  You used your mobility very well though and left your opponent with Hobson's choice in the end.  For some reason, I found it fitting that the Warboss failed his charge.  It was as though he had run out of energy chasing the Eldar around !  Thank you for the report .

[Blazinghand]

I liked your Eldar army.  Aside from the vehicles, it was very reminiscent of an old Rogue Trader skirmish force.  Either way, Orks are a tough match up for Eldar because it's often not possible to kill enough of them fast enough.  You used your mobility very well though and left your opponent with Hobson's choice in the end.  For some reason, I found it fitting that the Warboss failed his charge.  It was as though he had run out of energy chasing the Eldar around !  Thank you for the report .

Thanks! I've been enjoying running lots of both Dire Avengers and Guardian Defenders this edition. While Eldar infantry remains pretty flimsy, shuriken catapults are pretty strong in 10e and the mobility helps a lot with capturing objectives. We'll be moving up to 1500 points this week and I think I'll mostly be adding more infantry: another squad of swooping hawks, some fire dragons, a squad of rangers, and some jetbikes.