Friday 12 July 2013

Finally taking a proper pasting

Got another game in against toms chaos marines last night with a new variant of my eldar/dark eldar



My list was as follows:

Spirit seer

5 Wraithguard with wraithcannons
wave serpent with scatter laser and holo fields

5 wraithguard with d-scythes
wave serpent with scatter laser and holo fields

4 Windrider jetbikes with 1 shuriken cannon

10 swooping hawks

4 dark reapers
dark reaper exarch with night vision and fast shot

aegis defence line with icarus lascannon

haemonculous with liquifier gun

3 wracks
venom with 2 splinter cannons

5 wyches with haywire nades
venom with 2 splinter cannons

ive been wanting to try the dark reapers out as they look pretty sweet, add the spirit seer and put them in an aegis and they get a 2+ cover save with his primaris power. pumping out 11 strength 5 AP3 shots a turn at 48" range seemed nice, add in the icarus las for 35 points and youve got decent anti air, have it manned by the exarch and you get to fire 2 lascannon shots at a flier when it arrives hitting on 2's

Toms list was something like

warpsmith

3 squads of chaos marines with various upgrade weapons, 1 rhino

autocannon havoks

2 helldrakes, one with flamer, 1 with hades autocannon

2 maulerfiends with tendrils


We had standard set up along the long edges, Big guns never tire with 3 objectives. tom went first and i didnt seize.

Heres the picture before turn 1


Not much happened turn 1 except he put two wounds on the small dark reaper squad and i field both 3+ armour saves. Poor start.

Goes from bad to worse from there.

My wave serpents and jetbikes are on my right flank across from the 2 maulerfiends, i strafe them to get shots off, one of the serpents ending up in a crater, and it fails its dangerous terrain test and immobilises itself. woooo! 2 twin scatter lasers, 2 serpent shields and a shuriken cannon later and the Maulerfiend has taken zero damage.
The swooping hawks skyleap.

The venoms are on my left flank and combine with the dark reapers to put a severe dent in the havoks.

Turn 2

The autocannon helldrake arrives but the flamer one doesnt
It vector strikes an empty venom (the wracks are hiding behind my aegis for when the dark reapers get threatened.) and sttrips a hull point, the Dark reaper exarch takes aim with the Icarus las and despite it getting a 4+ cover save from ruins he manages to pen it, getting an imobilised result, locking its velocity. not bad!
The maulerfiends make a beeline for my aegis to threaten the dark reapers and my objective, which also takes the immobilised serpent and its cargo out of the game for now. 9 marines and the warpsmith in a rhino follow suit. The dark reapers take a couple more hits and i lose another 1, im bad at lances and im bad at power armour. sad panda.  The autocannon helldrake shoots the other venom with wyches in it and strips both hull points, the wyches disembark and start making their way centrally towards my threatened objective.

The swooping hawks return towards toms backfield and drop the pain on a squad of chaos marines hiding in ruins, killing half the squad. I've also purposefully put them within range of one of the maulerfiends if he decides to turn one around, yes its a scary beast, but swapping hawks also happen to have haywire grenades. The wracks move into the aegis to try and help protect the reapers and my warlord.

The still mobile serpent attempts to line up shots on the frontmost maulerfiend, as do the bikes. The wyches run towards the aegis.
2 scatter lasers, 1 shuriken cannon and 1 serpent shield manage to strip a whole 1 hull point from the mauler fiend.

Turn 3

The other helldrake arrives, vector strikes the swooping hawks. ouch. thankfully he rolls low and only kills two. The exarch is still alive on the lascannon and blapses it right in the freakin face, 2 hits, 1 pen. daemon invun doesnt save, i roll a 6 on the damage chart.
The rhino pulls up to the aegis and unloads the marines and warpsmith half into my aegis.
The front maulerfiend pulls to my right to threaten the jetbikes, the autocannon drake flies over the dark reapers and kills em both, leaving the spirit seer standing on full wounds.
The rearmost maulerfiend does indeed turn around to engage the swooping hawks, which im pleased with. Less so when i realise the squad they half killed still have full view of them to pick more of them off, i lose another 3 so im down to 5 hawks, still, 5 hawks hitting on 3's with haywire nades first in combat should do the trick.
The havoks pick off 2 wyches, the chaos marine squad mullerise the wracks and haemonculous with firepower, the maulerfiend dongs the jetbikes to buggery. And to make matters worse it heals the 1 hull point it lost. The hawks take the charge and whiff their attacks, 2 nade hits, i roll a 1 and a six, no glances, 1 pen. The fiends invun makes the save, 3 haws die but they hold due to base LD 9.

I unload the wraithcannon guard from the static serpent within 12" of the maulerfiend that killed the bikes, the wyches advance on the chaos marines, the spiritseer maledicts the marines with -1 strength. The mobile serpent pulls back to combine with the immobile serpent to try and finish off the remaining helldrake.
The wraithcannons do their job and vaporise the maulerfiend, the serpents fail to cause any damage to the helldrake, the wyches and spiritseer shoot the chaos marines and kill 2.
The hawks take a hull point off the maulerfiend and lose combat, the maulerfiend consolidates towards the wraithcannon guard.
The wyches and spiritseer charge the warpsmith and marines.
The warpsmith challenges and i accept with the seer, they challenge is a draw as they both trade a wound, the wyches strike before the chaos marines with re-rolls to wound in combat thanks to combat drugs, they manage to kill 3 marines, the marines strike back but due to needing 4's to wound this round they only score 2 wounds, the wyches save both and the marines lose combat, the marines break, the marines get cut down scoring me a paint token and a slay the warlord VP, the victors consolidate into the aegis and hunker down on my objective.

Turn 4

The helldrake flies off the table over the wraithguard, killing 2 with vector strike.
The marines that traded shots with the swooping hawks earlier move towards the objective in the dead center of the table, the maulerfiend moves right up in the face of the wraithguard.
The wyches and spirit seer get peppered with shots and the spiritseer falls, the wyches hold firm.
The maulerfiend charges the wraithguard, killing 1.

The mobile serpent moves towards the center of the table to draw a target on the advancing squad of marines. The wyches have gone to ground so stay put.

The static serpent immobilises the rhino, the mobiles serpent gets 5 hits on the marines in the centre but they make all their saves. The maulerfiend whiffs.

Turn 5

The marines take the objective in the centre, the helldrake vector strikes the mobile serpent and lines up its autocannons on the static one. The vector strike strips a hullpoint.
The drake autocannon misses all 4 shots.
The wyches take a mass volley of fire and die. The maulerfiend kills another wraithguard,

The mobile serpent moves in on the marines in the center again but still whiffs as they make their saves, if the game continues i'll be able to get the d-scythes out next turn and clear out the center.
The immobile serpent shoots the helldrake with everything but does no damage. The maulerfiend finishes off the wraithguard.
The game ends.

Chaos: 2 objectives, first blood, kill the warlord, 1 heavy support unit killed : 9 VPs
Eldar: Kill the warlord, 1 heavy support unit killed : 2 VPs


Slops & props

Props:
1-shotting the baleflamer bastard in the face before it could burn anything was good times.

Slops:
My above average luck with serpents finally evened out with a terrible 5 turns.
The dark reapers were quite good, but really dont gel with my army. They're a static firebase on foot in a mounted mobile army. As such they soaked up every shot that wasnt aimed at a transport.
And with the aegis they cost as much as 2 fire prisms.

Had a long hard look at the list afterwards, came up with this abomination:

Spirit seer

5 wraithguard with d-scythes
wave serpent with twin scatter laser

5 dire avengers
wave serpent with twin scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holo-fields

5 dire avengers
wave serpent with twin scatter, shuriken cannon, holo fields

10 swooping hawks

fire prism with holo fields

fire prism with holo fields

WRAITHKNIGHT

Theres not many dudes, granted. But one of the things thats become apparent in the games i've played so far was as dave mentioned when i played his guard, the serpents are such good gun boats they arent actually very good as transports for the 200 point troops inside. This configuration lets me use the 2 dire avengers serpents as gunboats and free up the wraithguard one to behave more like a transport. 2 fire prisms are scary. and i can squeeze in a freakin wraithknight.
It might struggle in some objective games, but just TRY and take first blood off of that list.
(If i decide its a bit OTT i could trim the fat and the wraithknight and i've got 300 points to spend on more dudes, which is nice. possibly up the dire avengers to 10 man squads and spend the rest on warp spiders)

4 comments:

  1. I look forward to taking it on on the 20th. The one bit of advise I would give based on my experience with my Guard is that you may find it useful to give one list a go for four games or so aginst a range of armies to let it settle in and allow you to see how the different missions and set ups affect your decision making with it.

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  2. Generally id totally agree with you, but there are times when something just doesnt fit and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

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    1. Nurglings would be a good example of that! I just hate painting things up only to find I don't want to ise them any more but also dislike playong with unfinished models. Oh the troubled life of a miniature gamer!

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    2. Thankfully i was just using some space marines as stand in dark reapers so i got away with that one.
      Not to say that i cant ever see myself using dark reapers, it would just be a very different list.

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