Mine, Eldar
HQ
- Farseer - RoWard, Fortune
Troops
- 5 Dire Avengers
- Wave Serpent - TL Scatter Laser, Underslung Shuriken Cannon
- 5 Dire Avengers
- Wave Serpent - TL Scatter Laser, TL Shuriken Catapult
Fast Attack
- Nightwing Interceptor
- Nightwing Interceptor
Heavy Support
- War Walker - 2 Scatter Lasers
- War Walker - 2 Scatter Lasers
2 Scoring Units, 9 Kill Points, 1,000 Points
BloodByam's, Dark Eldar
HQ
- Homunculus - Hex Rifle, Shatter Shard
Troops
- 5 Kabalite Warriors
- Venom
- 5 Kabalite Warriors
- Venom
- 5 Kabalite Warriors
- Venom
Elite
- 3 Kabalite True Born - 3 Blasters
- Venom - Extra Splinter Cannon
- 3 Kabalite True Born - 3 Blasters
- Venom - Extra Splinter Cannon
- 3 Kabalite True Born - 3 Blasters
- Venom - Extra Splinter Cannon
Heavy Support
- Ravager
- Ravager
3 Scoring Units, 15 Kill Points, 1,028 Points
Errrr, what? 1,028? We're going over his list for this post and it matches what I thought it was when one of my first opponents brought it up to me that it seemed slightly over. The list we made together was 998, so here I am with my foot in my mouth for swearing that I'd have to be wrong about what he had if it was over 1k. BloodByam is one of the most honest people I've ever known, but he's not without oversight. He forgot his list in the car and totaled it up wrong, hurrying to begin in time. So we ended up with a Hex Rifle and 1 Blaster that shouldn't have been in there. D'oh =( We offered our prizes back, but the T.O. decided that the Hex Rifle (1 wound in 3 games) and the extra Blaster were too minimal to have significantly affected our games. The rifle-holding TrueBorn would certainly have been first to be removed as a casualty from the unit as they poured out of the flaming wreckage of their exploded Venom. In most games that's how they ended up on the ground too. We lead our games by a large margin due to the overwhelming firepower coming from our units. One blaster can't account for a lead like that. So BloodByam's gotten docked an equivalent value in next years tournament. I laughed at him pretty hard for that haha.
We started up in game one against Orks and IG. Nice, I thought, we have the shooting to pick out the heavy weapons quickly and the speed to move for objectives. Then I see that the match will be kill points. Oh god. 30man Ork mobs and IG platoons for a single point? This could be bad. Here is the table:
We started up in game one against Orks and IG. Nice, I thought, we have the shooting to pick out the heavy weapons quickly and the speed to move for objectives. Then I see that the match will be kill points. Oh god. 30man Ork mobs and IG platoons for a single point? This could be bad. Here is the table:
I don't remember their whole list, but it was something to the tune of a Big Mek with KFF, about 60 Shoota Boyz, some Ork artillery with a Shokk Attack gun, 2 or so units of IG with some HWTs, about 10 Vets, 10 Lootaz, 1 Basilisk, 1 Leman Russ with the 24" cannon, 1 Leman Russ with the long range large blast, an ADL with Quad Gun and that tower fortification with just the Heavy Bolters. They forgot to deploy their Lootaz so those guys would have to walk on. Lucky break there because Lootaz would have been incredibly effective against us. Basically early on we were focused on reducing their ability to shoot down skimmers, as was true in all our games. Their tanks were a problem because they could do a lot of damage with some fairly likely luck. I'm not one to trust luck, so we'd have to deal with those asap. Once those were clear, we were looking to take out the Lootaz when they arrived and to collect any easy kill point. The KPs were tough because the squads were huge and went to ground behind that ADL for a 2+ cover at every opportunity. To do serious damage we had to get behind it...
Above and below, you can see just how many models we'd have to grind down just to get a single kill point. Even with massed dakka that wasn't going to happen through 2+ cover saves.
That picture above is what happens when Venoms take a Battle Cannon blast. I believe this was on their first turn. This is why it was of such importance to silence those things before they could fire much. Easier said than done with their awesome armor and all the HPs they have.
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| Here's a good look at their side after our first turn. |
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| A shot of the action from the table. |
I have a habit of forgetting to take pictures as turns get quicker and I get more invested in the game. The last picture below is either during or after our turn 2. My Nightwings came in on the right to shoot at the IG tanks and position themselves to Vector Dance behind the ADL on turn 3. My Hornets outflanked on the left, but I forgot that the Boyz there had a KFF and the Ork player rolled pretty well for his cover. I ended up getting assaulted for that. So lesson learned, math better when shooting Orks with 24" guns. I could have taken those shots from further away and estimated 5 or so kills. Luckily the assault didn't destroy any of the Hornets but it did pull those Orks much closer where we managed to thin them out from 30 Boyz down to 11.
Turn 2 with my Nightwings was not that impressive. Just stunned the Russ, which was helpful. But they did have a great turn 3. One managed to shoot up the Lootaz that walked on and did 4 wounds, forcing them to run off the board. The other put 4 pens and 2 glances on the Basilisk and won another KP. The next turn I managed to bring an Instant Death Bright Lance shot down on the Shokk Attack gun too, which was clutch as it also gave us the Slay the Warlord secondary objective.
I have fewer comments on BloodByam's side of our turns because he plays quickly and I was busy with my own army. His Ravagers were instrumental in bringing down the heavy tanks in this game and his massed poison shots worked wonders at wounding down units and forcing infantry-based heavy weapons to go to ground. Because his vehicles are such glass hammers they also took a lot of attention away from my army and allowed me to blaze away with my 51 S6 shots all game. That's something that remained true throughout each of the day's games.
The main challenge of this game, I feel, was the mission type. Kill Points is our nightmare mission. We have a combined 24 of them in our force. The enemy had like 13 if I'm counting right. Most of them were not easy to get either. Going into the game we knew that the enemy heavy weapons were too few in number to devastate our army before we could silence them, but the worry was that they might kill enough fast enough that we can't catch back up without having to table them. Our opponents conceded early because we were coming up on the early finish call at a point where we were going to be jumping behind their ADL with our skimmers and denying cover. Ending a little early meant both teams could get a bonus point at least, instead of only us getting a point for the secondary objectives.
This game was a fun start to the day. It took some thought to secure the win and it was cool to play against armies and units I never see on the east side of the island. Our opponents were nice and really thoughtful guys. Excellent painters too. One of them actually won first place in the 40k painting competition with his Shokk Attack gun. The other had Squats for his IG. That was a treat to see. I never know how people feel about having their names posted online, so I'll just leave it at "thanks guys!"
It would seem that the key here was a precise strike to be effective in all situations, most people are against an all-comers list, but in the case of this I believe you proved that a collective effort between both you and your partner to develop tactics before hand and kno how to uuse your units, outweighed any "meta" list that might have come, especially with a 2vs2 scenario. looking at the sheer volume of units you faced in round one most would have decided that the outcome was not in your favor. You changed the dynamic of the game actually if you think about it in a wide broad view you won in mission types in which you should have lost, but the experience you and your partner had was just incredible.
ReplyDeleteI can think of some hideously bad match ups that would have been an uphill battle in any mission, but even in those games I think we'd have a chance. Offensively, we really have our bases covered. The problem is that defensively I don't know that we could survive losing first turn to 2k of MSU Grey Knights/Inquisition. Or missile spam Tau. Dark Eldar are known for being a glass hammer army and the presence of my tougher tanks and flyers supplements that defensive deficiency, but our strategy was, all told, an offensive one.
DeleteThat's not something I think everyone is prepared for. Especially with the Internet telling everyone they need large, tough squads on the ground. Or flyers. My approach hasn't changed that much with the new edition, really. I like to pick a route and walk it to the very end. If I'm going for offense I want to cram every gun that I possibly can. I know the Eldar vehicles those guns come on aren't hard to kill, but how hard are they to kill after they hammer the enemy with lasers? That's some of what I was thinking when I came up with my half of our list. Point:S6 hit efficiency and vehicle unit saturation.