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Author Topic: Croneworld Koxinga Rises  (Read 18403 times)

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Offline Ibushi

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #60 on: January 4, 2017, 02:14:20 PM »
Thanks team, appreciate the comments! Yes this game truly was a nail biter, and was super fun to play. It seems like more of a blowout victory in hindsight, but at the time it really felt like walking a razorwire tightrope where one misstep and you lose your nuts...

Most importantly, I'm finally back home with solid internet coverage, and so I've uploaded ALL the pictures. I repeat, ALL THE PICTURES -- check out the last three batreps for some added pictorial quality.

Here are some more photos of the Croneworld Koxinga Warhost from its raid into Cavalier space (I'll put my Lions of Asuryan photos on Cav's thread):





The Two Brothers Tanaka: one a Farseer, the other the High Kabuki




 



 



Croneworld Koxinga circa 2010 -- oh how far we have come! You should still be able to spot the two Tanaka brothers in there... along with some of my favourites like Prince Ibushi -- the Croneworld Avatar, and the Croneworld Wraithlords

Ok that's all for now, will be back next week with some updates on TSHFT and venturing out to Seattle
Check out my PLOG! Croneworld Koxinga Rises

Wet Coast GT 2015 Best Overall
TSHFT 08-15 3rd Place, Best Eldar
Guardian Cup 8.5 Best General
Attack-X Best Overall
WGWB 2015 Best Overall
Tanksgiving 2015 Best Overall

Samurai Eldar, Coming to a Croneworld Near You.

Offline colinsherlow

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #61 on: January 30, 2017, 11:59:16 PM »
Update! Do it!

Offline Aurics Pride

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #62 on: February 10, 2017, 09:48:42 AM »
Oh man, just read your last battle report!
That Cheesedar army is really nasty, massive tip of the hat to you for being able to outplay him and take such a convincing win!
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Offline colinsherlow

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #63 on: February 16, 2017, 11:04:27 PM »
Any thoughts on the new Aeldari and Black Guardians?

Offline Irisado

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #64 on: February 17, 2017, 07:50:02 AM »
There's plenty of discussion about the new Black Guardians to be had over here.
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Offline Ibushi

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #65 on: February 17, 2017, 12:33:31 PM »
Thanks Auric, glad you enjoyed it! Man it got my heart rate going, that's for sure! When everything came in turn 2 and just obliterated the lion's share of his army it was truly a glorious moment and a massive relief... Also it gave me new experience in playing null deploy style where there is literally no point in putting models on the table. Glad it worked this time, and this is an experience that has served me very well since then...

Thanks Colin! I will do some updates for you my friend! Thoughts on the Aeldari and Black Guardians... Well the Ynnari look super strange to me, I think they bring a mechanism that can help Eldar deal with being Alpha struck in a whole new and strange way, but your model positioning will have to be laser perfect. The thing I am probably most excited about is the mashing up of the factions into the Aeldari concept (now the Reborn Ynnari), but the amount of excitement this brings my Harlequins is extreme. The other thing that gets me excited beyond words is... THE YNCARNE! Oh my goodness Ynnead is awakening, this stuff is BONKERS, I *NEVER* would have believed GW would start moving in this direction and bringing out fresh new crazy like this even 6 months ago. Already picked up my Yncarne model and did one test game and it kind of blew my mind, that beast is very very interesting.

Black Guardians... well as some of you may know, the samurai Eldar concept began as an Ulthwe Strike Force under the Eye of Terror rules, so Black Guardians are very close to my heart. I am very excited for these rules for the potential they offer, and I love that they can bring something unique. The fact that you oddly cannot take any psykers with them bugs me a lot, the fact that you cannot join ANY characters to the unit (yes to avoid deathstars, but still) also bugs me quite a bit as I would love to put the Visarch or Yvraine in there, even just an Ulthwe Farseer and Autarch would seem reasonable. But OK I get it. At the competitive level I could see 1-4 units of scatbikes being very effective for the nominal points increase, or maybe 2 units of scats and 2 single war walkers for a bit less points. Saying that, I think they will be much more fun as a mid-tier fluff & fun army at lower points levels, say 1k-1500 points, where Guardians are really cool and can actually be a menace.

The real craziness right now is Strength from Death, it truly is beyond understanding in some ways. Eldar always struggle with alpha strike armies, particularly Marines with a lot of drop pods etc.

I did a playtest against Battle Company featuring 6 drop pods with a lot of meltas/flamers a Dreadnought and 3 grav centurions and then 6 scouting Razorbacks/Rhinos loaded with grav. It is clear that jetbikes benefit from the Ynnari rules inordinately, so I took a lot of jetbikes, scatbikes, reavers, and then a few warp spider units, backed up by one squad of dark reapers under a void shield, and the Yncarne! Basically what happened is the SM pods arrived turn 1 and killed a jetbike unit, this triggered 2 units to Soulburst back and kill a comabt squad, which triggered a further 2 units to Soulburst and shoot, which took out a Rhino, which triggered the Yncarne to appear near the end of the shooting phase right in the middle of the SM forces. Panicking, the SM player decided to unload the rest of his graviton shooting into that terrifying creature, taking down 3 wounds, but also sparing the many jetbike units he could have devastated. On the next turn, the Ynnari moved up and just BLASTED the SM forces to smithereens, it was truly horrendous. Right now it seems that Strength from Death soulburst actions happen EACH PLAYER TURN which just seems overpowered. Playing it this way the Ynnari were able to get a free shooting phase in the SM turn, then with some good positioning you get two shooting phases for each Ynnari unit in your own shooting phase as well. Truly, truly insane.

The Yncarne was pretty solid, not at Wraithknight levels without stomp or a shooting ability sadly, but the Fearless + FNP bubble is no joke, and his movement shenanigans are THROUGH THE ROOF. Each turn I would send a jetbike or reaver unit into the SM backfield.. if he didn't kill it they would just loiter around and deny maelstrom. If they DID kill the jetbikes, *pop* Yncarne suddenly appears in their backfield and is ready to charge on the following turn. Really egregious stuff. Oh the Yncarne is on a single wound left? Shoot a unit far away from the action and *pop* suddenly he is miles away. And so long as you keep some jetbikes around him, every time they die he regenerates a wound on a 3+!??!?! Haha so much fun.

Last but not least, I was not a fan of the Revenant discipline at first, since it is mostly witchfire focused and has very mediocre buffs (6++ in a 7" bubble? Yeah I think not), but after playing the Yncarne with 3-4 witchfires, it is actually a lot of fun being able to throw those attacks around in the psychic phase like candy, especially the Nova one... love it! Unfortunately the Revenant powers really struggle with vehicles and artillery, but against infantry they are mean. Yeah the primaris kind of sucks, but if you can get it off with 2 warp charges it does let the Yncarne easily snipe out heavy weapons.

Huh this post ended up being way longer than I expected, I'll leave it there for now. But coming up... TSHFT report!! My list from TSHFT was virtually identical to the Attack-X one, and these were the matchups:

Game 1 vs Seer Council + scatpack + hornets + dark reaper spam, ouch
Game 2 vs ITC #1 Space Wolf player rolling Superfriends deathstar... this was an intense tactical match
Game 3 vs. Aurelio's War Convocation (ITC #4 ranked Skitarii) > VERY close game
Game 4 vs. Geoff "inControl" (ITC ranked #2 GSC) and his GENESTEALER CULT aka the ELDAR KILLERS >> I almost cried during this match
Game 5 vs. Alex Gonzalez's Renegades (ITC Best Knights Renegades) > think double chaos knight, zombies, and artillery to the 9s
Game 6 vs. Jonathan's Bark-bark star... what a wacky game, great way to end things

Check out my PLOG! Croneworld Koxinga Rises

Wet Coast GT 2015 Best Overall
TSHFT 08-15 3rd Place, Best Eldar
Guardian Cup 8.5 Best General
Attack-X Best Overall
WGWB 2015 Best Overall
Tanksgiving 2015 Best Overall

Samurai Eldar, Coming to a Croneworld Near You.

Offline Cavalier

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #66 on: February 18, 2017, 07:34:32 AM »
Great stuff as always Ibushi. PfD is ridiculous... definitely will be covering that in Splintermind. Recording the Fracture of Biel-Tan next week... I'm expecting some scathing commentary from Thor. Feel you on the Ulthwe stuff too. Trying that out this weekend. Looking forward to your report too, hope you did well. Great little teaser there... some doozies for lists lol.
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Offline colinsherlow

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #67 on: February 22, 2017, 09:16:30 PM »
Dear Cavalier! What is this splintermind that you speak of? Link me!

Looking forwards to hearing your battle reports Ibushi.

And yeah I am stoked to give the black guardians and the Yncarne a try. I know the VSG is great, but I feel that the black guardians will give me more of what I want. Which is to fully null deploy when that suits my needs. An Autarch will for sure be required.
And you know I love to null deploy.

I have also been thinking that black guardian and sky burner corsairs could work really well. Again with CWE to get an Autarch. But right now I am interested in the fancy new Eldar. I have so much Eldar/Dark Eldar and harlequins it's not even funny. So stoked
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 09:17:57 PM by colinsherlow »

Offline Irisado

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #68 on: February 23, 2017, 05:08:57 AM »
Dear Cavalier! What is this splintermind that you speak of? Link me!

Take a look at Cavalier's signature for the link ;).

I'm glad that you're enjoying your games Ibushi and I hope that the battles went well.  Looking at the lists you're up against, all I can say is rather you than me.
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Offline Ibushi

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #69 on: February 24, 2017, 01:35:44 AM »
Alright team, glad to see this thread getting some love -- ask and ye shall receive!!

Game 1 versus Eldar from the Craftworld, those cranky old gits

Mission is ITC 1 - Emperor's Will + Linebreaker on Dawn of War

Player is an old hand with lots of classic Eldar models (and a lot of new also), but not super familiar with 7th ed competitive play, so that is a good start for my end as this year at TSHFT we are here to win, or die trying!

Josh's Eldar:
Farseer – jetbike [Fortune on this guy]
4x Scatbikes x3
3x Hornet
Wraithknight – 2x inferno cannons, 2x scatter lasers

Seer Council - jetbikes
2x Farseer – Warlord [Shrouding and double Shriek, but no invisibility!]
5x Warlocks

Aspect Host:
3x Dark Reapers x3 – Exarch - starshot

Josh opted to deploy and go first, spreading out from left to right across his DZ, with the Wraithknight, Seer Council, and Dark Reapers grouped towards the centre, two hornets out on the far right, and one on the far left.

He made a big mistake with his psychic powers, rolling both Seer Council Farseers on Telepathy in the hopes of getting Invisibility, but ultimately failing. Then he rolled the third Farseer on Runes of Fate and got Fortune, but strangely didnt join him with the Seer Council during deployment. This created a significant weakness in his defences.

The Cronekin did not fancy being shot off the table in turns 1 and 2, so went into reserves almost entirely. Only the Wraithknight (out of range of much of the enemy shooting), Rangers, and two units of Warp Spiders deployed to hold the shield generator, hiding under the void shields. Really hoping the Wraithknight will survive turn 1 so he can pop back into reserves and do a turn 3 fake-out redeployment.

Turn 1 Josh cautiously moved forward while blasting away the void shields and almost destroying both the shield generator itself as well as taking the Wraithknight down by 3-4 wounds in turn 1, really nasty stuff! In response the Crone-kin played around terrain and reserves, the Wraithknight popping off the table and Warp Spiders staying out of LOS. While we didn't achieve much, Josh was fatally over-extending his troops throughout the board by going after maelstrom points, positioning to get around terrain, and generally feeling confident instead of castling up.

Turn 2 the majority of Tanaka’s reserves arrived, coming in on the extreme left corner away from most of the Craftworlds firepower and focusing down the Fortune farseer, Wraithknight, and jetbikes on that side of the field like a finely honed laser. The next two turns were absolutely devastating for the Craftworld army, as the Cronekin made their way across the battlefield eliminating all in their path and using terrain and range to avoid any return fire. 3 units of Warp Spiders also deep struck on the right corner to take out all the hornets and distract the seer council and dark reapers while Tanaka advanced from the left. Finally in turn 5 the Craftworld Eldar were completely eliminated with time still left on the clock -- 11 to zero victory for Tanaka, and no less than three Farseer soulstones to claim!!

Looking back at this game, had Josh been more focused and aggressive in turn 1, it would have been a really hard fight for the Cronekin, but by detaching the Fortune farseer and spreading out his whole army, it made the Reserve play all the more powerful as it was able to focus fire at will. Being more aggressive, Josh probably should have put all his Farseers together, juiced up Fortune and Shrouding, then turbo-boosted straight at the void shield generator and hidden underneath it until the reserves came on. That would have been scary.

OK onto game 2 and a totally different experience...

++

Game 2 vs. Mike’s Superfriends-star: Relic on Hammer & Anvil

Rune Priest – thunderwolf, claw, storm shield
Iron Priest – thunderwolf, hammer, storm shield
Iron Priest – thunderwolf, hammer, storm shield
15 wolf puppies
Servitor
Servitor

Ravenwing Chaplain – bike, Warlord
Ravenwing Chaplain - bike
Scouts
Scouts
Fire Raptor gunship - Legacy relic for Monster Hunter

Ravenwing Librarian – bike
Ravenwing Librarian – bike
Ravenwing Librarian – bike

Wow a really mean list here! The Ravenwing re-rolling jinks just shuts down offensive firepower so hard, and the Space Wolf 2+/3++ backed up by 4+ FNP and Eternal Warrior with Endurance from the Librarians just makes the unit virtually impossible to take down. I've seen many lists like this but to be honest have never actually faced one, so this should be fun. Of course, as Mike points out -- being Hammer and Anvil and Relic, the Eldar can always just take 2nd turn and essentially win the game with turbo-boosting obsec jetbikes, but where's the fun in that?

++

Eldar do win the roll to go first and decide to forget jammy last turn wins, let's try and start chewing through the big star as much as possible – probably not the correct choice, but we had high hopes of banging out some characters early and just getting things over with. The pointy ears set up in a phalanx formation in the centre of the DZ right on the line, ready to go. Superfriends set up in a vast deathstar of resilience on the other side. (Actually he also set up two servitors inside a ruin and to my discredit I 100% had no idea, although in fairness Mike probably should have pointed it out.) Imperials fail to Seize the Initiative.

Turn 1 and the Eldar firepower opens up, and does almost nothing, it is really really shocking. Everything moves up and shoots like crazy business, taking out a puppy here and there and scraping off a wound or two, but nothing of significance and no First Blood as all the characters wounded do manage to survive, drat. Swooping Hawks bounce forwards and land 1” away from the star to hold them at bay for one turn hopefully, while of the 3 units of Warp Spiders that moved up, one unit rolls too low for assault jumps and has to also suicide forwards rather than draw the star closer – probably not quite the right choice, could have risked the charge, but oh well. My concern was that if the star could pull off a long charge into some warp spiders, it would catapult them A LOT closer to my lines, which was just not worth it in the long run.

Superfriends comes back and casts Haemorrage on a unit of Warp Spiders, forcing them all to take Toughness tests with a re-roll, and they ALL fail, dying to a man and giving up First Blood – brutal! Next the star easily kills the Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders in front of them, and only gets 2” for consolidation, which is perfect, effectively freezing them in place, but losing TWO units of warp spiders turn 1 was a nasty shock.

Turn 2 and the Eldar scoot the Relic backwards into the home DZ, way out of threat range and under the void shields. This turn a unit of Warp Spiders deep strikes behind the star to take out a servitor and contest a home objective to keep the Maelstrom tied up, which is good. Shooting continues to pour into the star and just refuses to do any significant damage – the Wraithknight jumps up and hoses them with the Deathshroud cannons for 20 wounds but fails to really kill anything! At the end, one librarian is down to one wound, and an Iron Priest is taken down to one wound as well, but nothing really came through. For instance the Warp Hunter rolls just 2 shots and scatters off the star, killing a single puppy. Not significant. This game is starting to look increasingly daunting...

The star keeps coming forwards, while the Fire Raptor screams on from the back table edge. The big angry bird eyes up the Wraithknight and opens fire with all the weapons, causing a stackload of wounds and shockingly the Wraithknight just gives up and dies!! 4 wounds maybe 5, but all 6 in one go?!?!? Ridiculous!! There goes the plan of charging into the star and doing some stomps at least. Fortunately the star is not able to touch anything else, although a few characters do split off to go backwards and lay out the warp spiders that just arrived, easily wiping them out. Scouts outflank under the void shield to try and tap out the Hornet, but it survives.

Turn 3 and the Shining Spears keep scooting the Relic backwards, further and further away, it should be at the back board edge soon, which is scary as then there is no further to go. The army shuffles a bit left and tries to blast the leading characters of the deathstar some more, killing a librarian, but still nothing really major has come through. In the backfield, Autarch Okomori charges into the scouts to try and assault them to death, but a single model survives to deny a maelstrom point, very frustrating. The Cronekin just can't catch any breaks in this game it seems...

The star moves up again and tries to cast Haemorrage on some Warp Spiders – they all fail toughness tests and die, again! Brutal! Then we have a bit of a kerfuffle as I have pictorial evidence that the librarian now “casting” haemorrage is not the one that originally did so, and in the end we bring the Warp Spiders back to life to remedy the situation. But that was almost totally brutal! The Fire Raptor screams forwards and blasts into the Warlord’s jetbike unit as well as another unit, one jetbike from the single unit dies and they fail their leadership check and run off the board! Cowards! Tanaka’s unit also takes a casualty or two, but they hold. Scary times, gah really cannot catch a break in this game at all. Finally in close combat the Autarch is able to kill the last scout and claim a maelstrom point, so that is very good -- maelstrom is tied.

Turn 4 and the Eldar are thinking of the end-game and how to block the Deathstar from getting to the Relic, and how to keep objective secured models alive if at all possible. Autarch Okomori Skyleaps into the air to get out of dodge, everything else starts shuffling towards the back-right corner away from the encroaching star. Rangers finally outflank into the Superfriends’ backfield, but come in on the wrong side and look like they will get hosed next  turn, so that is again unfortunate, man alive. (In hindsight: a really clever bugger would have brought them on in the home corner and then shuttled the Relic towards them to increase the number of obsec models there, that would have been clutch. Next time!)

In the shooting phase the Warp Hunter opens up on slightly bunched superfriends, targeting the Warlord and scoring a load of hits –- the Warlord fails a couple of Look Out Sirs and then fails a single re-rolled jink save! A miracle! Rolling the d3 Destroyer wounds a 5 comes up and the Ravenwing Warlord gets aced!! What a great moment, finally! Other units shoot into things and kind of don't do anything, then scoot away towards the back right corner. Bagging Warlord is a great moment, but sadly it's not going to stop the Superfriends.

The Star splits up, Librarians attached to Ravenwing all moving and turbo-boosting towards the Relic corner, while the remaining Space Wolves follow up behind, moving and running, while the Fire Raptor pours fire into the Shining Spears and Warlord for some wounds, but only kills 1-2. This is it folks, can we do it?!?! Whoever wins primary is going to win it, as Maelstrom is tragically still tied up, very, very frustratingly.

Turn 5 and the Eldar shimmy the Relic into the absolute back right corner, with a single obsec jetbiker standing guard over it. The Shining Spears and Farseer space out to try and block models from getting too close, while the Warp Hunter moves up to try and take out the Librarians and Chaplain with his template shot. The template comes up and hits all four models, then wounds 3 of them (crap!), finally the Chaplain passes his invulnerable save so only two models die. Very unfortunate, as that could have been it! Hornet also shoots into them in a hail mary move, but fails to do any damage. A better move would have been to move up and block them I think.

Last turn for the Superfriends and he is able to blast away the last obsec jetbiker with the Fire Raptor, assault the Shining Spears with the Iron Priests (claiming Warlord), and turbo-boost the Librarian and Chaplain onto the Relic to score it and win the game. A very close loss, and just a few dice rolls away from a win!

++

This one really got me thinking, and at the end of the day if the Wraithknight had survived that turn of shooting I think it would have gone the other way – he would have popped off the table then walked back on right where the Relic was, ready to molest the star as it tried to make a play for the objective. Even as it was, just a few dice rolls and it was the Cronekin's game I reckon. Impossible to know, but well played to Mike for sure, he was clearly very experienced, knowledgeable, gamey, and a bit greasy, but also very genial and affable – a top table cat if ever there was one.

In hindsight the better play in this game was to hang back and completely abandon the Relic, but play 110% for Maelstrom. If the Superfriends get locked out of Maelstrom then they HAVE to win Relic and Tertiaries, which were Table Quarters, First Strike, and Warlord. The Star is really tricky as they can break into so many tiny pieces for scoring late game if it needs to, but if the Eldar hang out of range this doesn't really get him very far. Should have gone with deep striking all of the Warp Spiders, outflanking the spears, then just shooting out of the void shields with the jetbikes and Farseer - something to think about for the future!

Ok team, that was two epic slaughterfests at TSHFT with solid tactics and mean, mean lists, and we are just over half way through day 1 -- wow I am exhausted just writing this up, can you imagine what it felt like at the actual event?!

Next up, WAR CONVOCATION

Check out my PLOG! Croneworld Koxinga Rises

Wet Coast GT 2015 Best Overall
TSHFT 08-15 3rd Place, Best Eldar
Guardian Cup 8.5 Best General
Attack-X Best Overall
WGWB 2015 Best Overall
Tanksgiving 2015 Best Overall

Samurai Eldar, Coming to a Croneworld Near You.

Offline Ynneadwraith

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #70 on: February 24, 2017, 06:58:53 AM »
Wow that was a close game :) right down to the wire.

Can't wait to see what the War Convo brings :) I haven't seen Skitarii in action yet, and I'm very curious as to how effective the Canticles are...
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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #71 on: February 24, 2017, 05:07:59 PM »
Cool reports Ibushi. Sounds like you had some rough luck against a killer list in that 2nd game. It's especially rough that it was such a tight loss despite some frankly brutal turns against you.

I look forward to the rest of the reports!
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Offline Ibushi

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #72 on: February 24, 2017, 07:24:27 PM »
Cheers guys, yeah it was a tough one that 2nd game, especially knowing that with a slightly different approach it should have been a much easier victory for the Eldar -- but in my pride I wanted to win the "hard way" and just went for it! Even so, I highly value my losses at big competitive events like this, they are always really great learning experiences (much more than the wins most of the time).

@YnneadWraith -- I will be sure to give some extra detail to how the War Convocation works for you! They are a truly brutal army, with Canticles and Doctrina Imperatives. NO JOKE AT ALL. The biggest thing against them too is just trying to remember what on earth everything is and does, too...

Alright here we go:

Game 3 vs. Aurelio’s War Convocation: Purge the Alien on Vanguard Strike

Tech Priest Dominus - all the free gear
Kataphron Breachers x3 – haywire cannons
Kataphron Destoyers x3 – heavy grav-cannons
Kataphron Destoyers x3 – heavy grav-cannons
Skitarii Vanguard x10 - some 18" plasma weapons
Skitarii Rangers x5 - rad carbines etc.
Sicarian Infiltrators x5 - claws and music blades
Sicarian Ruststalkers x5 - tasers and uzis?
Sydonian Dragoons x3 - taser lances
Onager Dunecrawler - icarus array, dataspike
Imperial Knight Crusader - battle cannon, gatling cannon, missile pod

Inquisitor Coteaz

++

Aurelio was a real gentleman, a very nice man indeed, and the best possible War Convocation player to face since this army is so complicated and confusing! Especially after a mentally fatiguing technical game like against Mike’s deathstar. (Also Aurelio's models were very nice.)

Fortunately for me I have at least played War Convocation one or two times before, and the really big thing to know is that turns 1-2 their ENTIRE ARMY will be Stealth+Shrouded, so get some ignores cover on that or prepare to get roasted. To that end, Tanaka rolled on Divination and was able to get Perfect Timing so that was great, without it we would have to either full-reserves and hope for the best, or get first turn. Aurelio rolls the dice and wins first turn, so there goes that option. Going into Reserves is also not very attractive against War Convocation as they have multiple fast, mean assault elements that will get up to your board edge and assault whatever comes on. Plus if you are hiding off the table they just won't trigger Stealth+Shrouded until just before you arrive, so you still have to deal with that madness either way. OK, onto the action.

War Convocation deploy fairly spread out, with a core of Breachers and Destroyers with attached characters, the Knight and Dunecrawler out on the right flank, the Dragoon chicken-walkers are on the left, and the various Skitarii infantry bring up the centre. After infiltration and scout moves, the Skitarii had a formidable centre-table presence, very fearsome -- to be honest I had no idea the Skitarii units could all scout, that was a nasty surprise and gave Aurelio some huge board control right from go. Mission is Purge the Alien and I have a lot more Kill Points than he does, so it's clear he is just going to go for the throat...

Eldar deploy on the far left table edge as is typical by now, range and movement being the two best tools of this army. 3x 5 Warp Spiders stay in Deep Strike reserves along with the Hawks and Rangers, but everything else hunkers under the void shields behind terrain hoping to weather turn 1 and start giving as good they get from turn 1.

++

Eldar fail to Seize.

Turn 1 and Aurelio sends the Ruststalkers and Infiltrators barreling towards the Eldar, getting within a few inches but out of LOS thanks to a huge window-less ruin, really scary stuff. If those units get into assault next turn that will be the end of the Eldar. (I hadn't realized the position I'd put myself in since the ruin was working for my army to block LOS to most of my units -- it never occurred to me that Aurelio could use it to cover his own advance too! D'oh! Also the fact that the Infiltrators and Ruststalkers both got to scout forwards got them MUCH closer than I had thought they would get turn 1... )

Shooting opens up and the Breachers get started with 6 haywire shots, easily stripping down the void shields – I am a fool, should have seen that one coming! Previously haywire did not affect void shields, but of course it does now thanks to the GW FAQ! Knight Crusader then opens up into the Warp Hunter, stunning it in the water!! What a terrible start! Going from bad to worse, the Dunecrawler scores 1 glancing and 2 penetrating hits on the Hornet as well, which fails 2 of the 3+ jink saves to give up First Strike – terrible! Just awful. Should have gone in Reserves.

On the Eldar turn, we need to get rid of those Sicarian Infiltrators on our doorstep and just hunker down against the War Convocation shooting for one more turn until the reserves come in and go from there. As expected, the entire War Convocation is rocking 2+ cover thanks to Stealth+Shrouded, so not going to do much damage realistically. Let's focus on surviving.

Wraithknight moves up and realizes he cannot actually see enough of the Infiltrators to warrant using the Hellstorm template on them, so instead he moves backwards shoots into a unit of Destroyers and causes a couple of wounds through the Stealth+Shrouded (yay!). Farseer Tanaka powers up Perfect Timing and leads his unit of scatbikes on the warpath, gunning down 4 of the 5 Infiltrators with ease – the surviving Princeps fails leadership and runs away, so that is a good thing! Meanwhile on the left flank a unit of Warp Spiders and the Shining Spears gang up on the Sydonian Dragoons – they kill one with shooting, charge in and kill another on the assault, leaving the third with just a single hull point and taking one casualty in return – pretty solid stuff! No full KPs earned yet, but we are shutting down some of the War Convocation’s assault options, and that is good enough against such a tricky army. Finally I get Aurelio to roll his leadership on the Destroyers that lost one model – and he FAILS! They also run towards the table edge and will need to regroup next turn or be destroyed! Wow that is a huge lucky break, it practically makes up for all the tough times in game 2...

++

Turn 2 and the War Convocation keep up the pressure, moving forward and popping Stealth+Shrouded once more. Breachers again easily take down the void shields and lay into the generator itself, bringing it to 2 hull points. Knight Crusader sends firepower pouring into the Warp Hunter, killing it and also putting some wounds on the Wraithknight. Dunecrawler and heavy stubber shooting is able to take out a unit of 2 jetbikes as well, making the volley of fire from the right side of the field very effective this turn. In combat we make a rules mistake and the shining spears roll at strength 6 when they should have been strength 3, and they cause a single glancing hit to destroy the chicken walker. If it is any consolation he would have probably killed the unit that turn and been destroyed the next turn by the Wraithknight, so it was much of a muchness. The Shining Spears just hung out behind a giant 41st millennium billboard for the rest of the game until they got murdered, so not much of a loss as they didn't contribute much this game. The biggest thing this turn is Aurelio goes to make his morale check for the two Destroyers and they fail AGAIN, running off the table and gaining the Eldar their first KP. This Is big! Lastly the Sicarian Ruststalkers also moved up towards the Eldar, keeping up mad assault pressure.

Eldar roll up Reserves and two units of Warp Spiders arrive along with the Rangers outflanking in the top right. One unit of Warp Spiders drops behind the Knight and Dunecrawler in the bottom right corner, lacing the Dunecrawler with monofilament and stunning it, which is pretty decent, before getting out of LOS of reprisal from the Knight with Battle Focus shenanigans.

Over by the Shining Spears, one unit  of Warp Spiders drops in to lend weight of fire into the Warlord's Destroyers, but mishaps back into reserves. Phew that was close. Psychic phase sees Tanaka juice up the Perfect Timing again, before shooting all the Ruststalkers down to a single Princeps as well! Other shooting pours into the Warlord’s Destroyer unit for a casualty or two, gradually chipping through the 2+ cover to grind away their firepower one model at a time. The Eldar are really just setting up the positioning at this point to spring a massive assault next turn once the Stealth+Shrouded goes away, and just need to avoid those nasty assault units until then. The plan of just surviving has gone pretty well so far, despite losing both the Warp Hunter and Hornet a bit earlier than I'd like. Next turn should be the turning point of this game...

++

Turn 3 and the War Convocation keep moving forwards and pounding away at the Wraithknight and jetbikes – Knight Crusader gets the Wraithknight down to 2 wounds and also chews through another hull point on the VSG to get it to 1 HP, while a jetbike is also blown up by cannon fire, but they don’t run away this time fortunately.

Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard have pushed up on foot all through the centre of the table by this point, putting major pressure on the Wraithknight in particular, for fear of all that high-wound volume of fire from the radium carbines. They aren't actually in range, but this is still good play by Aurelio as it prevents my Wraithknight from moving forward even 6" as then he will get blasted. Otherwise I would have just charged him right into the Warlord's Destroyer unit when he still had 6 wounds. Good play all around really, this is a close game.

Aurelio does pull another nice trick at this juncture, using Canticles or something to make his falling back Infiltrator Princeps become Fearless and immediately regroup! This allows him to act normally with immediate effect, meaning he can now assault into my nearby Warp Spiders in a most unexpected fashion... oh dear. Shooting then continues on the right side, and finally we get to the assault phase and Aurelio seems to forget to declare a charge with his Princeps (probably just mental fatigue at this point), so the Warp Spiders are off the hook for this round.

Turn 3 for the Eldar and the last two Warp Spider units as well as the Swooping Hawks come in finally – Hawks drop on the right side and lay into the unit of 5 Rangers at centre table with the grenade blast, killing two, then killing 2 more with lasblaster shooting. Warp Spiders drop down table right just next to the Hawks, but critically within range of Coteaz and his powers – the lone remaining Destroyers and Coteaz with the Tech Priest Dominus shoot into the Spiders for 2 casualties, can't believe I forgot about that ability! Could have been worse though. Those Spiders then turn around and are able to wipe out the Ranger princeps with s6 shooting.

The Warp Spider unit on the far right side then moves up and is able to destroy the Dunecrawler which is a relief, that’s two KPs so far this turn. Warp Spiders on the left then jump forwards from behind their billboard and unleash into the 10 Skitarii Rangers, wiping out all 10 for a 3rd KP with some help from scatbikes. On the left the scatbikes tear into the Warlord’s Destroyer unit, killing the destroyer for a 4th KP, while the Wraithknight puts the hellstorm templates and scatter laser into the last Ruststalker princeps – the Princeps passes both invulnerable saves against the template attack, goes to ground, but fails a 2+ cover save agains the scatter laser. Bam, 5KPs and now the only ranged shooting threats remaining are the Knight (which is still legitimately scary!), and the Breachers with their 6 haywire shots. A VERY good turn! That about puts the Eldar and War Convocation neck and neck for scoring, it's still anybody's game -- but now the edge has definitely shifted to the pointy ears in terms of killing power and mobility.

++

Turn 4 and it feels like it has been a marathon already. Aurelio continues the pressure, this time his Infiltrator Princeps, who has passed all his invulnerable saves against Shining Spear shooting so far, charges the Spears and wipes them out, brutal! The Knight Crusader keeps stepping up and blasts away at the Wraithknight, blowing the wraith construct apart and scoring 2KPs! The Knight then sends its gatling cannon into Farseer Tanaka and his jetbike unit, obliterating the entire squad and scoring Warlord and a further 2KPs! BRUTAL! On the right, Breachers unload into the Rangers of all units, trying for an easy KP, but they go to ground for a 2+ cover save and don’t take any casualties. A good idea, but probably not the best call. The Warlord and Coteaz just sit tight out of LOS as best they can, hoping not to give up Warlord.

Turn 4 and endgame for the Eldar – Warp Spider unit 1 annihilates the Infiltrator Princeps at last, Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders annihilate the Breachers, Warp Spider units 3 and 4 shoot into Coteaz and the Warlord and fail to kill them, which brings Purge the Alien to a dead tie at 9 points!! Thanks to Warp Spiders jumping around contesting objectives, and the relative lack of mobility of the War Convocation after turn 1 scouting, the Eldar have handily taken the lead in Maelstrom, and with Warp Spiders scoring King of the Hill versus Aurelio’s First Strike and Warlord that gives the game to the Eldar 7-4!

Lesson Learned: Perfect Timing was HUGE in this game, but the risk of not getting it is also very high. Not rolling that quintessential 3 on Divination would have cost the Eldar this game easily. A good option is probably going to be bringing a single Warlock on a jetbike to zip forwards and cast Reveal, and in other games he would be useful as a little scoring unit. Something to think about for sure.

Ok, back to the room to rest up (finally!), and then let's gird our loins for the big showdown in the morning -- Geoff "inControl" Robinson and his gorgeous but terrifying Genestealer "Eat Eldar for Breakfast" Cult!

++
« Last Edit: February 26, 2017, 02:31:11 AM by Ibushi »
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Offline Dread

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #73 on: February 28, 2017, 02:51:19 AM »
HOLY CRAP BATMAN!! what a game. I'm missing out on so much. I'm going to try and get a game in next week, should be interesting, I'm soooo rusty.
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Offline Ynneadwraith

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #74 on: February 28, 2017, 06:46:11 AM »
Wow that seemed like a great game! It's excellent to see that Skitarii/War Convo have a real character of their own as an army, and GS Cults next which are the same!

Can't wait :) and congrats on the hard-fought win :)
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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #75 on: February 28, 2017, 09:07:50 AM »
Helluva game Ibushi! I thought after that 1st turn that you were in for some rough times, but it looks as though you made all the right moves after that initial turn whilst also getting some nice luck thrown in for good measure.

I look forward to the next Bat Rep...which I'm guessing is going to be super tough for the Eldar.
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Offline Ibushi

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #76 on: February 28, 2017, 11:25:51 AM »
Thanks guys, yeah you all hit the nail on the head - War Con are no joke in the hands of a skilled player like Aurelio, you have to keep a really tight ship to hang in there with them, but GSC is even worse if they get the jump on you.

The great thing about playing Aurelio was that it was the last game of Day 1 (exhausted!) but he was very, very nice, and the way he played was so "out of the book" and predictable that it made my job as an Eldar player on the back foot a LOT easier.  The strength of War Convocation is that with the Scout movement, +3" moves on the sicarian units, huge amounts of shooting and assault threat, and the Stealth+Shrouded 2+ cover on everyone for 2 turns, they basically can grind through most armies in that amount of time. The downside is that they don't have much tactical flexibility or ability to reposition if plan A doesn't come through.

Once I realized that there was virtually no hope of taking out his Knight, I just ignored it and accepted the casualties it was going to cause (A LOT! Hornet, jetbikes, jetbikes, Wraithknight, jetbikes, Warlord.... wow), but that allowed me to focus on the other side of the table and overpower that half of Aurelio's force. I see why he split his forces up, so he could catch my units wherever they tried to flee, but that's probably what lost him the game as I was able to just force one flank. Never let Eldar force your flank! But for us Eldar players, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS force the other guy's flank, by which I mean focus 100% of your units on just one side of their battle line, and use terrain and range to avoid and ignore stuff you don't like.

Yes the Knight got to pummel my forces for 4 turns in this one, but you'll notice it never got into assault range, so in that sense we halved its damage output from what it could have been, and I'm happy with that. Very sad to lose my Warlord, that is a low point in all of my games as good old Tanaka is a beast. Oh well, I'm sure he guzzled down some Farseer juice and got his spirits up once more....

Ok game 4 coming up soon! Genestealer Cult is a very tough matchup, but at least I knew what I would be facing that evening, and got to go to bed early and rest up for the morning, so it was an ideal situation in that regard.

++

Coming soon...
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Offline colinsherlow

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #77 on: March 1, 2017, 11:47:26 AM »
Excited to read about the GSG game. I haven't had the chance to play against them yet.

And yeah Warcon can be really annoying, but if your play your cards right you can put the hurt on. Just don't expect to kill much for 2 turns.

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #78 on: March 1, 2017, 12:20:34 PM »
Alright team, here it is: the much anticipated showdown between the Warhost of Croneworld Koxinga and the vile Genestealer Cult uprising that sprung a vicious trap upon them...

Game 4 vs. Geoff Robinson’s Genestealer Cult: Scouge on Hammer & Anvil

Genestealer Cult
First Curse:
Patriarch + 20x Purestrain Genestealers
Lord of the Cult:
Magus lvl 2
Brood Cult:
Iconward
2x Neophytes x20 – 2x seismic cannons + 2x flamers
Acolytes x5 – demo charge
Acolytes x9 – demo charge
Acolytes x10 – demo charge
Metamorphs x5 – hand flamers x2
Purestrains x5
Subterranean Uprising:
Primus
Metamorphs x10 – claws, hand flamers x2
2x Acolytes x10 – 2x hand saws
Aberrants x4 – hammers

1847 – BRUTAL

Mission was Scourge on Hammer and Anvil, board was very open with just one LOS-blocking hillock. I figure a big part of this mission will be deploying the objectives cleverly – so I start in his DZ by putting #3 out in the middle of the open at the edge of his DZ line, then work backwards until we have the objectives pretty well spaced out around the table, with big juicy gaps between them and not much cover around. I'm thinking if Genestealer Cult doesn't get you turn 1, their survivability (without shrouded) and mobility go down a lot, so the late turns will be key.

Psychic powers, Farseer Tanaka goes for Divination and gets Prescience, Foreboding (4++), Perfect Timing, and Scrier’s Gaze – all great powers in my books. Genestealers get some witchfires and the summoning power, which is moderately intimidating. Tanaka gets Master of Ambush for Warlord Trait, which I think may make for some fun shenanigans. Genestealers get an insignificant trait, i.e. not the one that lets them choose Cult Ambush rolls, phew.

The Cult does win the roll for deploy first-go first and opt to take First Turn, unsurprisingly! This is looking scary for the Eldar! Crone-kin deploy in a far corner, Warp Hunter and scatbikes huddled behind the VSG, 3x 5 warp spiders and the Shining Spears strung out in front to prevent first turn assaults as best as possible. Wraithknight, Warlord Tanaka, and one unit of Warp Spiders decide to Infiltrate, hoping to counter-deploy the cult. Meanwhile the Hornet and Rangers are Outflanking, while the Swooping Hawks +Autarch opt to deep strike.

In the infiltration phase the Genestealer cult rolls pretty well, 2x units get to shoot immediately, taking down 2 shining spears after some solid jink and armour saves, although I foolishly left them outside the void shields.. The metamorphs with claws roll a 2 and outflank INSIDE the VSG, very sneaky. Other units bubble out pretty far, literally putting a unit in every corner of the board and on every objective, as well as bringing 2x 20 acolytes with guns to bear on the Eldar corner. One unit of 5 hybrids rolls a 6 to assault turn 1 and duly lines up on the Shining Spears. Finally, last but by far not the least, the First Curse then with the final die roll gets a big nasty 6 for a First Turn assault, which is HUGE. Without that it was looking pretty peachy for the Eldar to be honest. Having the Patriarch and 20 purestrain genestealers barelling into our lines turn 1 really puts a damper on things...

Once the Genestealers are all down, the Eldar realize a HUGE mistake – there is nowhere for the Wraithknight or other infiltrators to legally deploy!!! After scouting around, nope, nowhere to go that is more than 12" or 18" away from enemy models – so the Warp Spiders go into Deep Strike reserves, and the Wraithknight decides to Outflank… Eldar fail to Seize (if ever they needed to Seize, now is the time!!), and so the Genestealer cult gets rolling…

Turn 1

Shooting opens up again, a demolition charge thrown from inside the VSG hurtles into the Farseer and kills a single jetbike after jinking, but they pass morale. Seismic cannons and autoguns hammer into the Shining Spears once more, taking them down to just the Exarch with one wound, but still not dead, so the hybrids are forced to charge them, taking two casualties in the process but killing the hapless Exarch with ease – should have checked they were under the shields!! The new FAQ of “whole units” under is definitely more tricky.

Magus tries to go for a summoning, but fails. Then the First Curse charges right into all 3 units of Warp Spiders, successfully multi-charging them right across the deployment zone with 20 purestrain genestealers and the Patriarch – brutal! Fortunately overwatch and Spider bites account for a handful of the bugs before they can strike, so while the Patriarch does kill an entire unit on his own, one unit of Spiders escapes with 4 models, and the third escapes with the Exarch and 1-2 more, then both units do pass their initiative checks and decide to hit & run forwards into the mid-field. That was a blow, but it certainly could have been worse. Oh and of course after working out which objectives need to be capped, the Genestealer cult burrows a handful of units underground to reemerge next turn...

Turn 1 for the Eldar and after weighing the options it seems silly to hunker back, since the First Curse is rocking 2+ cover in a ruin, one of the scatbike units is snap-firing, and next turn everything will get assaulted and murdered. Instead the jetbikes and Warp Spiders all move diagonally across the board as far as possible, getting out of charge range and LOS of as much as possible. The Warp Hunter and VSG stay behind to sacrifice themselves and prevent the First Curse from returning to the shadows by being within 6”. What little shooting there is fails to do much – kill a few acolytes here and there. Forgot that there was a small unit of 4 hybrids from the Shining Spear assault that would have been an easy KP, but when you are literally backed into a corner you don't think that clearly all the time ha.

Turn 2 opens up for the GSC with a bunch more units coming back via Cult Ambush (they had Returned to Shadows turn 1) – a big unit with Primus attached rolls a 6 for assault out of ambush and hurtles into the Farseer and two units of jetbikes – they are all massacred under a tide of rending attacks. There go two obsec units and the Warlord with his delicious psychic powers, sadly. Shooting also goes into the Warp Spiders for little effect, and one unit gets assaulted but escapes relatively unharmed. Units are popping up and going under all over the board at this point, it is almost impossible to keep track, so I’ll stick to the main kills instead. Also it becomes painfully evident that the GSC is going to run away with the Maelstrom, so Eldar pretty much give up on that one immediately. Instead we'll need to focus on winning the majority of the 6 objectives (plus bonus points for Fast Attack kills), and the on Tertiaries: Warlord, Linebreaker, and Big Game Hunter. Back in the DZ corner the Purestrains and Metamorphs assault into the Warp Hunter and VSG and easily destroy both, without any explosions or casualties. Not looking too good, as the Warp Hunter gives the Genestealer Cult an easy Big Game Hunter unless we are able to take out the entire First Curse. (Which is also the only way to get their Warlord...). Hopefully Reserves come in hot next turn!

Eldar turn 2 and with the -1 to Reserves from the Genestealer formation, only the Hornet and one unit of Warp Spiders come in from Reserves this turn, dang! No Wraithknight, ouch. Also Rangers might have been useful for denying the Purestrains from going under for one more turn, but oh well. The Hornet comes in back in the opposite Eldar DZ corner, hoping to just stay out of trouble for as long as possible – Scourge gives bonus points for Fast Attack kills, and the Hornet is not a difficult KP. At least with AV11 on the front it is somewhat difficult for GSC to shoot down. Warp Spiders drop down where the surviving 3x scatbikes, Exarch, and 3x Warp Spiders are hanging out, trying to create some Eldar-controlled space. Time to bang out some units – no point clipping models here and there, each GSC unit has to be completely eliminated in a single turn to make it worth it or else they simply burrow away and regenerate D6 models. Everything shoots into acolytes, taking out two units and then repositioning to create a huddle of warp spiders around the jetbikes, seeking to preserve that precious objective secured.

Turn 3 and the Magus comes back in from Cult Ambush, rolling the dreaded 6 and exploding out from under a ruin with 20 acolytes to shoot and assault the 3 jetbikes and 4 warp spiders. Shooting kills 1 jetbike, then the acolytes charge in and issue a challenge – the Warp Spider Exarch accepts, dealing a wound to the Magus and sustaining one in return, then a Warp Spider is killed while taking down his opponent also, and lastly the jetbikes pass all their armour saves while slaying an acolyte with their bare hands! Winning combat by 1, the Eldar feel good, even if they will be drowned in bodies next turn anyway. Then the Magus goes to roll morale on a 9, but brings up boxcars and fails! Thanks to the Iconward 24” away that just walked on from the back board edge, the Magus gets to re-roll....and rolls an 11!! With that the Warp Spider Exarch shoots him in the face and goes on to run down and massacre the entire Acolyte unit, consolidating back into the ruins covered in purple blood. Wow what a game-changing moment. It is still rough times for the Eldar, but maybe if the stars align… Meanwhile in the backfield the Metamorphs and Purestrains all burrow under again, ready to pounce next turn. If either of those units roll a 6 to assault out of Ambush next turn I think the Eldar will be toast, but only one way to find out...

Eldar Turn 3 and the Wraithknight finally comes on from Outflank reserve, rolling that delicious “choose either side” result and coming on right beside his Warp Spider brethren and ready to lay down the pain. Placing the Hellstorm template, he his able to hit over 10 models with each, wiping out the entire 20-man neophyte squad and attached iconward in one shot - bam! His scatter laser trains itself on the nearby 5-man purestrain squad, killing another 3. What a brutal moment of destruction, big boy is in the house! Warp Spider and Hornet shooting also gangs up on some neophytes, eliminating another unit and clipping a few more from a third. Wow turn 3 we really took a huge chunk out of the Genestealer Cult forces, this was a big turning point for the pointy ears.

Back on the other side of the board, the Rangers outflank in the home corner to hide under the wreckage of the VSG and hopefully be ignored.

Turn 4 GSC

Genestealer cult really needs a lucky break this turn, the First Curse emerge via Cult Ambush and are hoping for a 6 to assault and murder the Wraithknight, but alas Geoff only rolls a 5. They hop on a 3 point objective instead (the one I placed way out in the open at the beginning, my plan begins to bear fruit!). The Patriarch uses psychic shooting to kill off a Warp Spider Exarch that had eluded them last time, scoring a bonus point for primary and removing one of my precious units.

Acolytes pop up and outflank, opting to move up on the newly-arrived Rangers and overpower them with bodies in future turns back in the Eldar DZ. Also in the Eldar DZ a unit of acolytes ambushes the Hornet, hoping to kill it in assault, but they fail to get any rends through and get stuck in the open, phew.

Eldar turn 4 and the Swooping Hawks finally arrive – dropping down near the Hornet and exacting cruel revenge via plasma grenades and laser fire on the exposed Acolytes. Combined fire wipes the unit out, and the Hawks sit in a nice central position to move on a number of objectives next turn with that juicy 18” jump move. Also BS5 lasblaster fire is no joke against guardsman-equivalent models!

The Wraithknight, scatbikes and remaining warp spiders move up to focus fire on the First Curse, pouring monofilament shooting into the unit and leaving just two purestrain genestealers and the Patriarch with 1 wound left… the Wraithknight then needs 8-9” to charge in and finish them off, but fails the charge by 1" despite a re-roll for Jump. Still, a very brutal moment so long as there is one more turn to finish the job and secure Warlord and Big Game Hunter in one swoop. Genestealer cult are still winning Maelstrom by a landslide, so getting Warlord and Big Game Hunter as well as the primary objectives is going to be crucial.

Back in the Eldar DZ the Rangers get ballsy and decide to just assault the Acolytes before it gets done to them anyway, shooting them with pistols and assaulting like bosses. Unfortunately they don’t at all roll like bosses and get murdered immediately for no casualties. Oh well, it was going to happen anyway.

Turn 5

With 10 minutes each on the clock, Genestealer cult powers through turn 5, bringing a new unit of acolytes in to threaten the Hornet and my 3-point objective, as well as 4 Aberrants onto a nearby 2-point objective, Neophytes on the backfield 1-pointer, and the current Acolytes on the Eldar 1-pointer standing over the corpses of the Rangers.

Shooting from the newly arrived units goes into the Swooping Hawks, killing 2 or 3, while a demolition charge and pistol shooting goes into the last unit of jetbikes, taking them out despite jinking. Not bad, but if the remaining Hawks, Autarch and Hornet can clear out the 10 acolytes they will take back the 3-point objective with some luck.

The remaining non-First Curse purestrains move up to try and assault the Warp Spiders, but fail to kill them on the charge and the Exarch is once again able to hit & run away like a boss.

Over by the Wraithknight, the Patriarch casts Life Leech on the last two Warp Spiders over there, rolling a Perils and taking off his last wound for Warlord! Ouch! Life Leech also misses with both shots, leaving the Warp Spiders unharmed, adding insult to injury. There goes Warlord! At least he can say the Eldar didn't get him... Or maybe it was Tanaka's cruel mind reaching out through the Veil from the Warp to turn his brain to mush...

Eldar turn 5 and time for the killing blow, victory is in our sights if we can just eliminate enough foul aliens. The Autarch and Swooping Hawks split up and jump to either side of the Acolytes, while the Hornet shifts to be exactly at 3” from the 3-point objective (so it is contested at minimum). The Wraithknight jumps onto the other 3-point objective and shoots the last two First Curse genestealers with his scatter laser before assaulting and killing them. Meanwhile he shoots the Deathshroud cannons 48” across the table into the Acolytes by the Hornet, blasting away several of the cultists but also scattering off and unceremoniously murdering the Autarch – sorry Okomori! The Hawks throw grenades and shoot lasers, doing quite a lot of damage, the Hornet adds its firepower, then the Hawk Exarch charges in and finishes off the last 2 acolytes with her bare hands to claim that objective for the Eldar. This was really the turn of the plasma grenades, wow they helped a lot. Warp Spiders shuffle around in the mid-field, shooting away the last few Aberrants and claiming both 2-point objectives with the two exarchs and couple of models left. The Wraithknight already has the other 3-pointer, so that claims Primary for the Eldar.

Tallying up the points, GSC has maelstrom by a mile, Eldar score Primary by a mile though. Both armies have Linebreaker and Warlord, but thanks to finally catching and destroying the Purestrain Genestealers, the Eldar are able to wrest back Big Game Hunter to win the mission 7-6! Brutal!!!

++

Wow what a nail-biter! I definitely thought I was going to get tabled in this game turn 1, and then again turns 2-3 when the reserves just didnt show up. Just goes to show you, always have a plan and hang in there! Also sometimes the best strategy is just to run, and keep running until something crazy happens (like two failed morale checks!). If the Magus hadn't failed those morale checks though, pretty sure the Eldar would have lost as there wouldnt have been enough firepower and units left to successfully take down so many genestealer models and still score. A very close shave today.

MVP in this one goes two or three ways: Firstly the Warp Spiders basically won the game by being so damn slippery, and also causing a decent amount of damage, especially when focus-firing like a piranha swarm as multiple Exarchs converged on a single target. Ultimately they won the game by staying alive, running interference, and scoring the objectives. Go Warp Spiders!

Secondly, the Swooping Hawks were surprisingly important when they came in delayed, as it allowed them to become key damage-dealers instead of easy targets. Hunting down 10-man acolyte units in the open with plasma grenades and lasblasters is the perfect work for Swooping Hawks, and splitting the Autarch off to throw two plasma grenades at a single target was super effective. With a few more points it would be great to give the Exarch and Autarch power weapons, as they do get opportunities to assault fairly often. This game that final assault really clinched it, although to be fair even if that objective was contested the Eldar still would have won Primary. Even so, the Hawks did a lot of work, which is great when they do -- shoutout to Cavalier for inspiring me to keep these boys in the list!

Last but not least, the absolute boss of this game and let's just go ahead and say MVP – the Skathach Wraithknight with Deathshroud cannons! Coming in via Outflank was a huge deployment error, but ended up being a boon to the army through sheer luck really. Outflanking in and just eliminating that 20-man squad and Iconward was huge, then walking over and doing the same to the First Curse was absolutely clutch. Way to go Wraithknight, this game is why we bring you and it showed!

On the Wooden Spoon front, yes the Rangers were subpar but actually the real wooden spoon here was the general at play, for making so many deployment errors! Shining Spears not under the void shield turn 1?! Outflanking Wraithknight?! Some not great decisions here. Had the Wraithknight been on the table turn 1, he likely would have done SO MUCH damage to the First Curse, despite them assaulting in right away, that it could have clinched things sooner. But hey, this was the first outing against Genestealer Cult, and even with a loss I would have felt pretty good about the performance overall. Finally, Deathshrouds are in! Was really on the fence about bringing the Deathshroud cannons, and the last three games I really didn't feel like they did anything of particular worth -- but NOW, wow my opinion has totally changed, it is so clutch to ignore cover and just remove entire legions of troopers. Saying that, the trick is going to be predicting what your meta at a given event will be. In Seattle or the West Coast, I would expect plenty of Cult armies or Renegades or War Convocation, which the Deathshrouds should be useful against. Up here in Canada I would expect more mech and more Eldar, which makes the Inferno Lances much more attractive.

Enough from me, enjoy the game and let me know if there are any questions about how to play against GSC, I feel like I have a handle on it after TSHFT -- there were a LOT of GSC armies there. Also if you remember back to the 4x Flyrant and Genestealer army I played at Attack-X, Matt was also at TSHFT and ended up placing Best Tyranids, so hopefully we will cross paths again at Attack X this year and have a rematch with his newly improved army.

Ok onto game 5, feeling pretty energetic and ready for another challenge! Oh and a challenge it will be... Renegades with masses of artillery, two Chaos Knights, and the Chaos Cyclopia Cabal!! Nasty nasty stuff!!
Check out my PLOG! Croneworld Koxinga Rises

Wet Coast GT 2015 Best Overall
TSHFT 08-15 3rd Place, Best Eldar
Guardian Cup 8.5 Best General
Attack-X Best Overall
WGWB 2015 Best Overall
Tanksgiving 2015 Best Overall

Samurai Eldar, Coming to a Croneworld Near You.

Offline Looshkin

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Re: Croneworld Koxinga Rises
« Reply #79 on: March 1, 2017, 02:13:43 PM »
Wow! Just wow Ibushi!

I genuinely kept scrolling down expecting you to say that you were tabled by the end of turn 2 or 3 or something like that. Then I started thinking that you might at least make a good account of yourself. To win the game though? I never thought that was a possibility after the first couple of turns.

It definitely looks as though the luck from Game 2 has finally been balanced out though!

Great win Ibushi, can't wait for the next instalment!
WD127 - Started a Love Affair my Wallet Just Can't Cope With...

 


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