Well, I had my first game with my brother in a long time and after meeting up an hour later than expected and not having the proper programs on my computer to read his codex and army lists and having to start from scratch, we were finally able to have our long awaited game. We also trimmed the game to 1750, due to the lack of time and it was the easiest list he could build. We called it only after 3 turns, partially due to time, but it also ended up being a little bit of a blow-out by the eldar. Now a lot of the issues I believe stemmed from having a non-optimal list, having to redo his army on the flash and basing his typical list from 5th edition, as well as two tactical mistakes, which I'll cover after the report. I'd really appreciate some feedback for him on his list and strategy to help him out, as it was a little disheartening for him after years of consistently savaging my armies. All is models are not painted and can be easily converted to i.e. trygons to mawlocs.
Without further ado, here are the lists:
Eldar - "Nid Avengers"
CAD [477]
Farseer Skyrunner singing spear
Rune of Fate - Doom, Executioner, Mind War, Guide
Windriders with scatterlasers x 3
Windriders with scatterlasers x 3
Avatar
Avenger Shrine [390]
Dire Avengers x10
Dire Avengers x10
Dire Avengers x10
Aspect Host [484]
Howling Banshees x9 + exarch executioner
Scorpions x9 + exarch claw
Warp Spiders x5 + exarch
Aspect Host [385]
Swooping Hawks x6 + exarch sunrifle
Dark Reapers x4 + exarch
Warp Spiders x5 + exarch
Total [1736]
Tyranids
1 tervigon - paroxysm, dominion
1 tervigon - warp blast, dominion
1 tyranid prime- lash whip and bone sword, toxin sacks
5 tyranid warriors venomcannon,toxin sacks
27 termagants
20 gargoyles
5 hive guards
2 trygons, toxin sacks
3 zoanthropes warp blast, dominion, catalyst
We rolled for Purge The Alien, Hammer & Anvil setup. Tyranids setup first, and go first. I do not steal initiative.
Turn 1 - Nids
Everyone moves forward. Tervigons spawn 11 and 10. In the psychic, rolls a 2 for warp flux and tries paroxysm on my avengers and I deny. Shooting phase sees spawned gaunts run, hive guard fire into scorpions and they make all their saves, but lose three to the warriors that fire on them next. Terivgons fire stinger salvos, as well and I lose one more.
Turn 1- Eldar
Everything moves up the board. Roll 2 for the warp flux. I doom the far left tervigon. Shooting phase sees farseer's scatbikes fire into tervigon, causing 8 wounds, 2 saves fail with dark reapers stripping another 2 wounds. The other unit of scatbikes take a wound off the warriors. Scorpions fire on a gaunt squad and kill 5. Avenger formation bladestorms and fires 90 shots into his unwounded tervigon, causing 10 rending wounds, and fails he exactly 6 saves. Tervigon blows up, the lead squad that spawn all dies. Scorpions run. Assault phase sees banshees assault gaunts and wipe them out.
Turn 2 - Nids
Gargoyles and trygon come in from reserve. Gargoyles deep strike behind the reapers. They deviate into terrain and lose three to dangerous terrain tests. Trygon comes in behind the reapers as well. Remaining tervigon spawns 10 and moves to the back field. Gaunts move to intercept banshees, second gaunt unit moves to intercept avatar, while the warriors set their sights on some avengers.
Roll 4 for the warp flux and paroxysm is denied on banshees. Gaunts kill 2 banshees in shooting. spawned gaunts shoot and kill two more. Central gaunts fire into avatar with no results. Warriors fire into closest avengers and I lose one wound on the avatar and an avenger due to deviation of his venom cannon, devorers kill another three avengers. The remaining tervigon stinger salvos into banshees, nothing. Hive guard fires into avatar and he takes six wounds, but makes all his saves. Trygon fires into reapers and lose 2. gargoyles fire into reapers with no results.
Gaunts charge into banshees, overwatch does nothing. They make their charge ramge by rolling a 7. Surprisingly the banshess only cause two wounds while the gaunts kill everyone, but the exarch. I fail morale and run. Luckily the gaunts, do not catch her. Central gaunts charge the avatar, he kills one overwatch and they fail their 8" charge and roll a 3. Warriors charge avengers and fail.
Turn 2 - Eldar
Banshee exarch fails to rally, runs 7. Only 1 spider comes in from reserve. Warp flux is a 6. I doom the warriors and cast executioner, but the latter was denied. Shooting sees scatbikes into warriors, 11 wounds, one unsaved which removes a model. Avengers fire into warriors and remove a model. Second avengers fire and cause a few more, as well as the avatars wailing doom. Warp spiders fire into hive guard and cause 3 wounds, losing a model. Reapers fire into last tervigon and remove him, but he only loses 2 or 3 gaunts when he blows. Last scatbikes fire into warriors and remove one wound to take out the prime. The last avengers unit wipe out the central gaunts.
Assault sees avatar charges remaining warriors and wipes them out. Scorpions charge a gaunt unit and wipes them out.
Turn 3 - Nids
No synapse creatures, so everyone takes instinctive behaviour. Gaunts run and hide, trygon is forced to charge without shooting, gargoyles end up hiding, but can still shoot as they are in a building. Last trygon and 3 zoanthropes come in from reserve. Zoans show up in front of spiders, trygon in front of scorpions.
Warp flux of 2 and he warp blasts the spiders, which don't deny and flickerjump doesn't save them. All die in a blaze of warp energy. Gargoyles fire at the fleeing banshee exarch and fail to wound her. Trygon charges reapers and wipe them out.
Turn 3 - Eldar
Banshees arrive from reserve and grenade pack the zoanthropes and gaunts removing a few wounds. Last spiders stay in reserve. Warp flux rolls a 3 and I try to mind war the trygon, perils but goes off and I accept the wound. We only tie in roll off. I then fire doom at the trygon with my last two dice and it goes off and he fails to deny even though he throws all 5 dice he has at it.
Scorpions, jetbikes and one avenger unit fires into the trygon and kill him with the help of the doom. Hawks fire into guard and cause 3 wounds and blind them. bikes fire into the same, but to no avail.
At this point we call the game is its after 2:00am and he still has an hour drive back to his place.
Nids x3 units, linebreaker (4)
Eldar x9 units, linebreaker, slay the warlord, first blood (12)
The biggest shock for him I think was that I was able to kill a tervigon first turn, which has never happened to him before. He usually plays very aggressively and he is usually facing orks and chaos. Having his tervigons front and center really allowed me to use my battle focus to get just enough range to unleash my fire power, but not close enough for him to charge me. He also placed way to much importance on my banshees and reapers, which only caused nominal damage. He did this so much so, that he dedicated several hundred points in the back field to deal with the reapers that left them isolated from the rest of the battle. I think if he had started more units on the board and less in reserve, I would have been tempted to concentrate my fire power on different target priorities, allowing him to overwhelm me. He also should have split up his warriors to provide more synapse.