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!!