OK we had game 4 today and I did get a few pictures; but the whole game was pressed for time, so here is the synopsis.
Richard and Greg with their Imperial Guardsmen (Tread Heads & Traitorours Guard @ 1500pts each = 3K)Lists are nuts so no big discruption;
Richard's TreadheadsHQ dudes in a Chimera.
Sly Marbaro
4 Troops in Chimera.
48 conscripts.
Leaman Russ.
Scout Sentinals
Armoured Sentinals with Lascannons (+1 Armour).
Griffith
Greg's Traitors.Commisar Lord
Arnold Marbaro (sly 2 if you like).
Psycher Battle squad (7 + dude + tech Priest).
1 x Vets in Chimera
Scouts.
6 Ogryn
Vendetta.
Collosal
Manticore.
Yes that is a bucket load of Armour (16 armoured items) and one crap load of Imperial bodies.
John and Ken with their Eldar (Beil-Tan and Saim-Hann @ 1500pts each for 3K)John's Beil-TanAvatar
Farseer on Jetbike
5 Guardian Jetbikers
10 Defenders Guardians with EML and Warlock (Destructor)
6 Dire Avengers.
1 Falcon, Scatter, HF & Stones.
1 Wraithlord, BL ans sword.
1 Nightspinner, HF & Stones.
5 Fire Dragons
1 Wave Serpent, Scatter and Stones.
Ken's Saim-Hann1 Autarch on Jetbike.
1 Farseer on Jetbike.
7 Warlocks on Jetbike.
7 Guardian Jetbikes.
5 Guardian Jetbikes.
5 Shining Spear Jetbikes.
5 Shining Spear Jetbikes.
Yes that is one much faster army; but there are very few in Ken's host particularly.
The Mission is 2 Objective (the whole building with the guns on top of them) and the deployment was Spearhead (Eldar got to pick the deployment and since we hadn't done Spearhead yet, we went with it). The Eldar won the role and took choice deployment and 1st turn. The two set ups above are before pregame moves. Both armies had Scouts so the JBCouncil used Turbo to get closer and grab a cover save for turn 1, while the Scout Sentinals advanced and the Vendetta grabs a flat-out saves as it gets into possition. The stuff off table in the pictures was in reserve (Scorpions Outflanking, and the 2 Marlboro Men Inserting, while the rest was standard reserves). Here is what the 8 x 4 table looked like at the start.
Turn 1a Eldar ! --- no wait, Richard rolls to steal the initiative and bags a 6.
Guradsmen pretty well turn 90% of their force towards the JBCouncil and start dropping Pie plates and bucket loads of shooting into them. When the dust clears, the Autarch has 2 wounds, the Farseer has 1, and there is 1 lowly Embolden Warlock remaining. Oh wait, something big and nasty took a single shot at the Nightspinner and blew its Turret off with indirect fire (thanks guys, we needed to lose two of your best strategiv units right off the bat, that was great).
Turn 1b Eldar (for real this time - well what we have left at least).
Fortune on the JBCouncil (works) and Fortune on the Jetbikers with the other Farseer (works as well) and the Psychic hood fails to negate both powers. OK, that was nice, even if it was a little too late to really help the JBCouncil.
Eldar advance and grab some shooting LOS. most of the shooting goes south fast, although the Shining Spears manage to bag a couple Consripts, and 1 chimera is stunned I think. The JBCouncil then assaults 2 Chimera wrecking one and stunning the other. While the Shing Spears go in to kill off a few Conscripts, poor dice means that the Spears lose combat by 1, and then the fearless factor (Avatar was too close) has another one dieing so that one poor Spear is left to hold off some 40 Consripts (not likely bub).
Well that took longer in real life than it did in here, so we realized that we were seriously pressed to make the time limit now. And although the Eldar made some returns, I don't think that John was too impressed so far, and I felt like I was at a Turkey Shoot (and I was the turkey in the barrel being shot at).
Turn 2a, had the Imperial Guardsmen advancing their front line slightly and then a lot more shooting. This time the JBCouncil got finished off completely, and although John's skimmers did well enough (he made 3 or 4 cover saves) the Shining Spears also got finished off in Close Combat. (For those keeping track thats 4 Eldar units gone, and only 1 Guard unit gone).
Turn 2b; well if you think the Eldar were too aggressive last turn, wait for this insanity. As all the Saim-Hann arrive from reserves but the Scorpions sit twittling their thumbs.
The Beil-tan advance carefully overall except for the Nightspinner which goes Flat-out to build more cover saves. The newly arrived Shining Spears line up on the Scout Sentinals while the Small JB unit lines up on the psycher battle squad, and the larger JB squad goes at the arse end of the Vendetta. Shooting has the Vendetta Explode (killing Tech Priest and Greg forgot or decided to never place him on the table with his battle psychers - oh and 2 of those died as well). The small GJB squad then peppered the psychers to kill a couple more. The Spears shook 2 sentinals and Then John managed to stun another chimera and mow down some 8 or 10 consripts. Assault had the Small GJB unit kill all bu 3 in the battle Psycher squad, but the psychers are staunch and stand still. The Spears waste 2 Sentinals and then Hit & run (why you ask, because we were rushing and this was about the 4th or 5th mistake I made so far).
No pics, as I forgot by this point. The score got a little more even though, as Eldar are now down 4 with the Guardsmen down 3 (yes we kept score, incase it was a draw as is often the case in this scenerio).
Turn 3a, Both Marlboro men arrive and land right in the Eldar ruin that is their objective. Pie plate kills a couple Defender Guardians. Shooting takes out 1 Shining Spear, All of John's GJB's die including the Farseer, and the Consripts actually wound the Avatar as they took about 85 shots at him and scored 3 wounds in the end (he passed 2 saves). Falcon got immobilized way back by the Eldar objective. In assault the Sentinal Scout punches a Shining Spear in the face, and he dies, then the fearless factor kills another (woot - at least it wasn't the Exarch this time) H&R gets them into good position though. GJB squad kills another battle Psycher and they are still not faiiling any LD tests (no one failed LD in the whole game actually).
Turn 3b. Scorpions arrive to outflank, oh and you guessed it they are on the wrong side of the table so they continue to twiddle their thumbs (running as they twiddle). Fortune gets wasted by the P-Hood (nice range on that hood btw). But we do manage to Doom the lowly Consripts (we were making the most fun out if that we could, OK). Falcon stuns a Chimera, Seperent kills a few Consripts, Dire Avengers blast one Marlbaro man off the table as they get out of the Flacon. Fire Dragons get out of the Serpent and waste the last Scout Sentinal. Spears line up on the back of Richards +1 Armour Chimera and shoot it, then they assault it and waste two weapons while they block the back door. The NightSpinner flat-outs over to contest the Guard Objective, the Large GJB squads wastes a Chimera with some Shuri-cannons to its side armour (dudes inside pass their pin test). And then the Defender Guardians shoot the other Sly (Richards guy) and he lives due to GtG for a 2+ save. Oh, forgot the avatar, oh wait, thats probably because I think he only killed like 2 Consripts in CC.
We check the time and Richard is late already so we call it here with both objectives contested and both sides actually tied at 6 units down each.
As we are packing stuff up we realize that Johnathan actually could have assaulted Sly Marbaro with his Defenders, so the Eldar might have won the game; but considering that Greg also should have done something with that Tech Priest way back in when the Vendetta exploded (as he really did forgot about the dude) I think that all involved think it was a Draw. And I personally think we all had fun.
~ We rolled off for one Vet skill each (for those units that lived) and my Spears (the painted ones) now have Stealth while my dead JBCouncil lost Scout, and the Large GJB Squad retained its FNP and Counter-Assault.
~ Gregs Vedetta lost 2 Vets skills but he did earn 1 new one, (List them all for me Greg - cheers)
~ John's Scorpions earned a new Skill (for twiddling their thumbs - and please let me know what else you still have).
~ Richard retained his AV=13 Armoured Sentinals; but lost something I think, while he also earned "Fearless" on his Tarpit ... er... Consripts.
Overall assessment of the game is that us Eldar did better than I thought we would, especially after losing the Initiative like that. It as close and we could probably contest the Guard Objective for a turn or two more; but we were also pretty well out of tricks, so we were bound to continue to lose the few units we had left and eventually the Guardsmen would have ran us over I think. The game saw some wicked good dice and some silly dice as well, so I considered it average for the most part, and once again I learned few things about the Imperial Guard, so I appreciate that.
I would like to thank Richard, Greg, and of course my Partner in Crime - Johnathan for another great game within the purely awesome GWHalifax, I don't think there was a single rules discussion or weird factor that confused or freaked any of us out, so that was a bonus. I would also like to thank Dave and the local "Red Shirts" for their patience as we cheered and bantered away. Oh and a special Hello and Thanks goes out to Dallas as we love it when the GW big guys drop bye to watch and have a laugh with us.
PS.. Thanks for the honest comments on my Eldar Hornet, and I think that I might jsut bring some 50+ Armour piercing shots per turn for the next game if you guys still want to have 1 more. I would say we do another 3K (1500/side) as 4K would be huge and tough to do (I don't own that many more Jetbikers and I don't want to ruin my theme - I was kidding about the armour piercing bullets BTW).
