Battle Report: GK and Eldar v Space Marines x2

[Godeskian]

So I got unexpectedly thrown into a 2 x 2 game when someone had to cancel a regular game due to a family issue, so I ended up fielding 40PL worth of Grey Knights alongside 40PL of Craftworld Eldar, versus dual marine players. The Eldar might be Xenos, but at least they hadn't fallen to chaos....yet.

 

Anyway, turns out that my experimental build fit neatly into 40PL, so I fielded

Castellan Crowe

5 x Purifiers, one hammer

5 x Purifiers, one hammer

Stormraven

 

and

Farseer

Warlock

20 Guardians

3 War Walkers with Bright lances

Fire Prism

 

versus (and bear with me here)

a Psycher HQ, don't know who

3 units of Jump Marines

2 x Landspeeders

Landraider Redeemer

A Darktalon (it had a rift cannon at least)

And a landspeeder thing with a Plasma battery on the back and an assault cannon that I never learned the name of.

Some deepstriking CC terminators with a weird CC weapon that allows damage overflow on normal wounds.

It was a game of ups, downs and sheer butchery. Marred by absolutely epic dice fails, and on several occasions successes so utterly unbelievable they defy statistical probability.

 

Turn 1. GK and Eldar go first, opponent fails to seize.

The farseer dooms and guides the War Walkers who alongside the fire prism put 13 wounds on the Landraider, essentially crippling it and reducing it's movement to 4''. Meanwhile, since we had a tactical objective to slay a psyker and our opponents only had one psyker, I flew over the stormraven and unloaded the hurricane bolters and Assault cannon into him, and somehow only managed to 5 out of 6 necesarry wound, however the multi-melta finished off the enemy HQ and scored us the objective, slay the Warlord and First blood. More on the tactical use of a Stormraven as a character assasin later.

In their turn they put half a dozen wounds on the Raven, nailed half the guardian squad and generally positioned for objectives

Turn 2. Castellan Crowe wanders over to the Landraider after disembarking and smites it off the battlefield, meanwhile the purifiers between smites and stormbolters wipe out one squad of jump marines and put five wounds on one of the landspeeders. I ended up having to charge both squads in to kill the speeder, and even then the first squad just completely fluffed it. The Eldar reposititioned for objectvives and failed to get any psychic powers off, but still managed to wipe out the Dark Talon when everything fired at it,.

The deepstrikers arrived, but with our forces spread out across the battlefield, found very few places they could effectively land, and promptly fluffed their charge into one of the purifier squads. Meanwhile the TH/CC jump squad hit the war walkers, but only did a single wound. They are tough to crack, meanwhile the Spirit stone on the Fire Prism tanked a ridiculous 4 out of 6 wounds done to it from the Plasma battery. The stormraven gets knocked down to 2 wounds.

Turn 3.
 

The Raven and a reboarded Crowe flee in order to claim an objective, while the Eldar hold the center of the board, but with the Walkers having to fall back they couldn't bring all of their firepower to bear. Still killed all but one of the TH/CC troops. Purifiers smite a couple of wounds from the Termies and decided to charge, lest they be charged next turn themselves.

 

The terminators brutalise the Purifiers, losing one wound for the essential annihilation of the purifier squad.

in their turn the War Walkers get charged again, as does the fire prism, the Terminators finish butchering the purifier squad, but consolidation moves mean they run straight towards the second purifier squad. The stormraven...somehow... manages to take all the remaining shooting and lose a single wound. A desperation shot from a plasma pistol that hits, wounds leads to a 6 up save or die..... and is tanked on the 6, nearly causing a riot in disbelief as the Raven lives with 1 wound remaining.

Turn 4.

The terminators are smited off the board, and one of the remaining squads of jump infantry is massacred by Eldar fire, leaving them with one jump infantry model (not unit, model), and the plasma battery landspeeder thing.

With victory seemingly impossible, they go for an attempt at a moral victory and bring down the Raven, and possibly through a curse of some sort fail to wound it at all. In utter desperation the Landspeeder plasma battery rammed it, followed by the lone Jump Trooper. While the Speeder did nothing (other than the very important ensuring the jump trooper didn't take overwatch) the jump trooper, in furious rage over his slain fellows Hit, wounded, and carved the Stormraven out of the sky.

Turn 5 the Bright lances blew the Landspeeder out of the sky, and with the last remaining jump trooper now hidden deep inside a building and utterly unreachable for several turns we called the game.

----

 

Things i learned.

 

 - A Stormraven is one hell of an assasin. What's more a 45 inch range and the ability to fire off bore, means that nine times out of ten on a 4x4 you can leapfrog it over your enemies line so that their HQ is the closest model. I may make slaying the warlord with a Raven a habit.
 - 3d6 smites are brutal, but if you don't absolutely kill whatever you're shooting and smiting, then Purifiers die like marines. I ended up losing 7 out of my ten purifiers, but while they're living they are one hell of an alpha strike

- Eldar make amazing back field holders. The Bright Lances on a high toughness walker platform with 6 wounds a piece and a 5++ save is tougher to kill than most landraiders and never degrade until they start losing models. Very hard to shift. If I were playing against them I'd probably have to risk hitting them with everything, the Raven, the smites and all the shooting just to guarantee the kill, and then my army would be shot to pieces by the guardians and the Fire Prism.
- Hurrican Bolters are the absolute boss for their points cost.