Throwdown against mech eldar...

[Wolf89]

Well, yesterday I got a surprise IM from an old buddy of mine (law student, and when not studying he's always working), who wanted a game against me at 1850 before he faced off against another at 2500 (he's getting ready for some tournament he's going to that plays 2 point values).

 

My list found here, is only 1750, so I added in Wolf scouts with 2 pp and a meltagun. (mind you this is before I knew what he was playing, because it's meant to be like a tournament kind of "surprise you're screwed" sort of thing... :pinch: )

 

His list... mech eldar... ew... from memory:

HQ

- 1x Eldrad (I think was in a Dire Avenger transport?... I don't remember... too many frekkin' clown cars everywhere, and he was by himself most of the game in a transport)

 

Elite

- 1x Banshee squad (in wave serpents)

 

- 2x Fire Dragon squad (in wave serpents)

 

Troop

3x - Dire Avengers (all in wave serpents) (I think one squad wasn't full 10-man to accommodate Eldrad)

 

Some wave serpents had brightlances, they all had that dumb (can always move crap) as well as the ignoring 2D6 for armor pen thing... I think that was his whole list, lots of guys, in clown cars, and a mystical son of a #) %@& that likes to doom everything and guide the rest or whatever. (I'm sure Grey Mage will correct me when/if I make a mistake :teehee: )

 

So I get there, and immediately get this look on my face :pinch: , as two things went through my mind... first, glad I didn't bring my 13th company, and why didn't I bring a psychic hood/good psycher/oh wait SW don't have good psychers/why didn't I bring sallies/maybe even my chaos daemons/god I'm hungry, how about Wendy's...

 

We roll for the mission... it's the Seize ground or whatever (1D3+2) and he rolls a 6 (quite common during the game) so it's 5 objectives... yippee... and it's dawn of war deployment... I go first

 

Turn 1:

I set up my Rune Priest and GH squad in the Rhino by one objective, perfectly out of LoS of his vehicles for the following turn. My turn one, I bring on my stuff, stupidly spliting them by about 24" of one another with a vindi, a LS and WP rhino by the rune priest (also near a bunker I wanted with another objective inside), and the other my whirl, vindi, lord, and 2 LS by the other side, whirrly in the trees of course. I move up the RP's rhino to take the objective near him, then pop smoke on everything but the WP's rhino. (LS's turbo boosted)

 

His turn he also split his army, but more in the 90% here, 10% here fashion... basically the only thing on my other flank was a fire dragon squad. The rest of his army, on the other side, began with a dire avenger and fire dragon squad boosting up the outside flank, Eldrad, dire avenger, banshee in the middle near my rune priest's rhino, who shot the wave serpents at the rhino, but with a nice 4+ from the brightlance, the shurikans only got through, but still immobilized my rhino.

 

Turn 2:

I move up closer, the immobilized rhino with the RP and GH's get out towards his dire avenger wave serpent with Eldrad. My land speeders move to what I thought would be a 2D6 AP against 3 of the wave serpents... my vindis moved to position, my WP rhino and wolf lord rhinos took objectives as well as blocked LoS to the side armor of my vindis. Whirlwind obviously stood still in a nice wooded area when he came on the board. I shot with my RP's squad with a meltagun and 2 plasma pistols, both overheat and 1 GH dies... the meltagun (who I thought had 2D6) in fact didn't due to eldar being the scum of all xenos, and glances, then rolls a 1. My Land Speeders... 1 misses his shot (average, it's acceptable at this point), one doesn't pen or glace (no 2D6... remember?), and one pens, but only immobilizes (this is the fire dragon squad on my far flank). I then charge the WS with my RP sqaud, and glance it with my RP... that's right, not my power fist... my RP with his frost axe, and alas, it can't shoot next turn... Oh, forgot to mention, vindi's both didn't do anything... one scattered between two WS' with hole in middle, other was 1/4" out of range, I kid you not... had my vindi's weapon been movable downward like it should be, I would have had the range...

 

He moves up the 2 WS that turbo boosted up to my vindi and my WP rhino, the fire dragons get out and aim at my vindi (they blew it up). The WS that I immobilized all by itself, unloaded it's fire dragon cargo by my speeder that immobilized it (and they blew it up). The banshees unloaded near my GH's (pah, they'll need a lucky fleet to get there...), he rolls a 6 for fleet... Eldrad with dire avengers get out of their WS (hiding behind the one I assaulted), the one I assaulted boosted up the flank. Eldrad and avenger squad shoot at me (avengers bladestorm) but alas, my dice were average (somewhat) and I only lost... my WGPL, and 2 powerweapons... but my meltagun guy made all 3 of his saves... :D , oh and my rune priest lost a wound. The banshees and dire's charged, banshees killed all my GH's and the RP kills 4 dire avengers, loosing combat by 2, failling Ld and failing my saves so he dies. The guys try to get cover where they can with consolidate.

 

Turn 3:

My Wolf scouts come in, and fail to blow up a WS in the back armor, I charge, still nothing (no meltabombs, no points)! I move my other vindi, my Lord's rhino, my speeders, and that's about it. My vindi rolls a 1 for AP... but wait I get a 2nd die, oh, that one's a 2?... well it glances... oh wait, I rolled a 1 again... ;) My whirlwind managed to hit Eldrad, avengers, and banshee's, killing 2 banshees and 1 avenger, but passed pinning tests (damn 4+ cover saves). My WP and GH squad got out to charge the fire dragons. My 1 LS managed to get immobilized leaving some trees... and my other LS shot at the back armor of a WS (yay I get my 2D6) and I blew it up (banshee's WS that was empty... hallow victory for how they massacred my poor RP's squad). My WP with squad charged the fire dragons, WP killed 3, fire dragons strike back killing 3!, and my remaining squad with WGPL smack the rest to dear old Slaanesh... they needed a 3+ to get in the bunker, yay snake eyes, I love you! would you come and stay a while?

 

He unloaded his dire avengers by my WP squad, bladestorm, I failed a lot of saves and all but the WP and WGPL died. His other DA squad was unloaded and finished off the job. His fire dragons on the other flank that blew up my speeder, moved closer to my rhino and vindi but stayed around cover. Eldrad gets in his clown car, and moves to my lord's flank, shooting at my scouts, they fail their saves, fail Ld and run off. Banshees (now without a clown car, have moved in for the kill against my WP and squad, but since shot, they took a liking to my RP's rhino (immobile) to blow it up (it was on an objective... hehe :teehee: ) but they failed to do anything to hit). Other DA squad (only 3 man strong now) moved towards the objective while Eldrad takes their transport (hey wait for us Eldrad!, No, you've failed me, be gone!... zooom!)

 

Turn 4: god if you made it this far, I thank you, please don't go brain dead from reading my crap, you can't sue me... :unsure:

Well, again, moving my vindi (now into a nice spot I'd say for a little tactical stuff). My lord's rhino breaks off, to let out the cargo by 2 objectives where the fire dragons are foot sloggin', unload into them firing (both plasma pistols overheat... neither die though), and killing the squad. My whirlwind kills the remaining dire avengers (go AP4 go). My WP rhino tank shocks the DA squad closer to my vindi... and they don't break, but instead get funneled into a nice squishy, un-covered pile of meat. I shoot my vindi at them, scatter just enough to clip one and kill him, but the hole goes over their WS instead, and I take off it's brightlance... that works. My speeder shoots at the WS Eldrad is in, (again no 2D6 since it's front armor) and it can't shoot. In combat the banshee's actually blow up my RP's rhino... boo.

 

He moves his one DA squad (not hit by vindi) into the bunker to take an objective, the other DA squad moves out of LoS to take another objective, WS's blow up my WP's rhino, his banshees try to get into a WS but fail, Eldrad's WS moves closer to my Lord's squad, he gets out and I think that's it.

Turn 5:

My whirlwind kills a few banshees and they're now pinned. My vindi takes off the shurikan cannon of a empty WS, my immobile speeder can't do anything. My Lord's rhino moves in to Ram something next turn. My lord and retinue move closer to Eldrad, get off a melta and 2 PP shots, no wounds though (yay re-rollable 3+), they then charge, my lord causing a wound, the rest of the squad causing a lot of wounds but all saved, EXCEPT for the one that counts... the powerfist :teehee:.

 

He moves his WS that carried Eldrad over to contest my lord and squad objective, he moves another WS to try and contest, he loads up a DA squad in a WS to take an objective (the one hit with the vindi). His banshees squabble. Die is rolled, and game goes on.

 

Turn 6:

My whirlwind pins the banshees again (only 3 left now), and my vindi blows up a WS. My Lord's squad does some tactical moving and holds two objectives in a nice line, and fire at the WS contesting, blowing it up.

 

Game ends, nothing left to do. 2 objectives to 2

 

I really wish Eldrad wasn't capable of already nuking my low Ld... even though I was rolling low, the few times I cast stormcaller I managed to roll over each time. Also he was dooming and guiding the whole game, periled 3 times but saved them all no problem. He's definitely a nasty bugger with 3 DA squads bladestorming all over the place.

 

I was lucky at the end to pull a tie, I really was. It was a tough army, and his 2500 list beat down the BT player no problem... poor poor land raider crusaders...

 

Hope you enjoyed my story, I have to leave for a final soon (yay last one this semester), but I wanted to share this story with you guys. Hope I got everything right... after the game I went to my buddies dorms and ended up getting really sick, throwing up a load of french fries, and taking enough meds to put down a horse... good thing I'm a Space Wolf!

[LPetersson]

He moves up the 2 WS that turbo boosted up to my vindi and my WP rhino, the fire dragons get out

 

Do you mean he moved Flat Out (24")?

If that's what he did, then he can't disembark... Grrr, doesn't even know his own rules...

 

I feel your pain. My Eldar playing friend always fields Eldrad and he's bloody annoying :-/

 

It sounds like you rolled pretty unfortunately at key moments :-/

[Wolf89]

He moves up the 2 WS that turbo boosted up to my vindi and my WP rhino, the fire dragons get out

 

Do you mean he moved Flat Out (24")?

If that's what he did, then he can't disembark... Grrr, doesn't even know his own rules...

 

No, what it's saying is the 2 WS's that turbo boosted the previous turn, it only moved 12" that turn when the fire dragons got out. Sorry about that, my engrish sucks :D

[Grey Mage]

Wave Serpents are like drop pods... they can carry 12 models. Likely the Dire Avengers were all 10 man.

Wave Serpents get that Forcefield standard.... Nothing over str8, no more than once dice to penetrate. Be grateful they cant take holofields *like venerable, but worse*.

And yeah, eldrad gets three powers a turn. And can redeploy d3+1 units after deployments over.

Wave Serpents, with spirit stones *extra armor* and Brightlances.... 145pts a peice.... 90 points naked. Dire Avenger squad, 10 man with exarch, bladestorm, and doubleshot exarch gun? 152 pts.

 

Farseers get a 3+ Save against perils.... eldrad being the father of all farseers also gets a 3+ invulnerable. Be greatful he wasnt in CC. Wounds on a 2+, Ignores armor, and counts as Str9 vs Vehicles.

 

All in all it sounds like you did pretty well. The key to fighting an eldar mech list like that is actually a combination of Missile Launchers and Whirlwinds. Meltas work too, but as you noted... no +d6.

 

However, for future reference.... that force shield that keeps you from getting an extra d6? Yeah.... doesnt work on rear armor. And the rear armor is already 10. Might not come up often, but with speeders your more likely than anyone else eh?

 

Otherwise it just seems like you had some bad rolls man, and still ended up with a tie. Well done!

[Wolf89]

Yea Eldrad was a you know what. Doom everywhere, killing off my poor wolves... :cry:

 

I don't know if I said it or not, but I had a shot on the back with a WS, but he made his 4+ cover for going super fast. ;)

 

Poor rolling yes, but I hadn't faced an eldar list like this before, and apparently it's cheesy.

[Grey Mage]

Cheesy my rear end... 1 HQ, 3 Elites, 3 Troops? 900 pts in transports? Nah.... youd get two free points off him in a hard boys tournament, and you have a 1/3 shot of insta killing eldrad with any heavy weapon or template save heavy bolters for two more. What it has is speed.... lots and lots of speed.

 

What I think really gave him the advantage was the number of objectives. If that roll had been lower you both would have had to concentrate your troops.... wich would mean hed have been more of a target.