Eldar vs Nids battle report

[Karhedron]

I took the new codex out for a spin last night against an old friend who was trying out the new Nid codex for the first time. I played an Alaitoc list with a mix of my favourite units to see how it fared under the new Codex

Battalion

HQ
103 Autarch Skyrunner, Jetbike, Laserlance, Shimmerplume
45  Spiritseer

 

Troops
72 6 Rangers
140 10 Avengers, Exarch with Glaive and Shimmershield
60 5 Avengers, Exarch with Dire Sword and Pistol
134 Wave Serpent with 3 Shuricannons

 

Elite
225 5 Wraithguard with D-scythes
134 Wave Serpent with 3 Shuricannons
200 5 Wraithguard with Wraithcannons
134 Wave Serpent with 3 Shuricannons

200 Flyer Hemlock Wraithfighter

Spearhead
100 HQ Farseer + Witchblade, Runes of Fate

155 Heavy Fire Prism
155 Heavy Fire Prism
138 Heavy 5 Dark reapers, Exarch with EML

1995 Total 7CPs

 

My opponent was running a Nidzilla list full of Big Bugs based on 2 Speahead detachments. From memory, his list was something like this.

 

Swarmlord

Old One-eye

6 Carnifexes

2 Biovores

Mawloc

Trygon

Toxicrene

Exocrene

20 Termagants

 

The mission was Retrieval (4 objectives worth 3 points each) using the "Seach and Destroy" deployment map. I won the roll off and chose this one as it allowed me to put a little extra distance between my forces and the Nids. I based my deployment around some ruins on my right flank containing one of the objectives. My reapers took the upper floor for field of fire while the Avengers on foot held the ground floor. The Fire Prisms were on either side of the ruins which gave them both good fields of fire over slightly different parts of the battle field. My plan was to use the linked fire stratagem generously as it looked good on paper. The Wave Serpents were deployed in front of the ruins in a skirmish screen. Their job was to protect the infantry in the ruins from any bugs deploying from reserves and to bear the brunt of the inevitable assault. The Farseer and Autarch deployed in the ruins with my infantry where their abilities could benefit the largest numbers of units. The Spiritseer went in the Wave Serpent with the Wraithguard with Cannons. The Farseer took Doom and Guide while the Spiritseer took Protect/Jinx and the Hemlock took drain.

 

My opponent deployed his Nids as far forward as possible, eschewing cover in order to get stuck in faster. He chose the Behemoth hive fleet trait to allow him to reroll charges. His Swarmlord to took Onslaught and Catalyst. The Mawloc, Trygon and Termagants deployed in reserve, waiting to tunnel out into the open. Because the Carnifexes were organised into just 2 broods, he finished his deployment first and got the first turn, I failed to seize so battle commenced.

 

My rangers deployed in some ruins near the centre of the board to take a second objective. They stayed on the upper floor where they would hopefully be safe from charging monsters since the Nids had no flyers and only 1 unit of infantry.

 

Turn 1

 

The Nids advanced quickly. The Mawloc burst out next to the ruins in a small gap I had left between my infantry and tanks dealing several Mortal wounds to the tightly packed units. The Trygon emerged on my right flank with the Termagants in close for support. In the Psychic phase, he cast Onslaught on the Toxicrene which had advanced giving him a good chance to threaten my lines. Despite only having a few shooty units, he managed to roll well damaging one of my Wave Serpents with the Exocrene and killing a Ranger with a Biovore. In the assault phase, the Toxicrene pulled off a lucky charge against a Wave Serpent with the Wraithguard and heavily damaged it.

 

In my turn, my infantry in the Serpents disembarked before the Wave Serpent in combat with Toxicrene withdrew. My Wraithguard with D-cannons and the Spiritseer advanced to tackle the Trygon, the unit with D-scythes headed towards the advancing Carnifexes. The Hemlock headed out to the left flank while the rest of my infantry formed a firing squad for the Mawloc in their midst. The Farseer managed to Doom the Mawloc and the Spiritseer Protected the Wraithguard to give them a 2+ save but suffered a Perils of the Warp and lost 2 wounds (I was glad I took a Spiritseer instead if a Warlock as a Warlock would have died to that result). The Hemlock peeled a few wounds off the Toxicrene with Smite. The shooting phase was impressive, the Dire Avengers and Wave Serpents stripped most of the wounds off the Mawloc thanks to Doom. The Wraithguard killed the Trygon with the Wraithcannons and the Dark Reapers killed one of the advancing Carnixes. The Hemlock continued to attack the Toxicrene. Not everything went my way though as the Wraithguard with D-scythes whiffed their wound rolls and failed to kill the Carnifex they were taregtting despite a respectable 10 hits. Lastly I linked the Fire Prisms and vapourised the Toxicrene. In the assault phase, my Autarch charged the Mawloc and slew it with his Laser Lance before it could strike back. The Wraithguard with cannons assaulted the termagants to stop them bogging down the rest of my lines and slew 3. I had survived the first wave but now the heavy-hitting Carnifexes were getting close to my lines and next turn would be crucial.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Karhedronuk

[Karhedron]

Turn 2

 

The Nids lumbered forwards once more with one Carnifex advancing quickly towards the Wraithguard in combat with the termagants while the Swarmlord moved up to menace the squad with D-scythes. The rest of the carnifexes advanced towards my firebase and slightly battered screen of Wave Serpents. The Swarmlord cast Catalyst on itself and Onslaught on the the Fex that had advanced. The nid shooting claimed another Ranger and a reaper with the Biovores while the Exocrene stripped some more wounds off the Wave Serpent on my right flank leaving it teetering on 1 wound. The Nids charged and managed to pull off every charge they declared. Fex with Onslaught charged into the Wraithguard squad fighting the termagants, another hit the damaged Wave Serpent and another hit the Wave Serpent screening the Dark Reapers. Worst for me, the Swarmlord charged the Wraithguard with D-scythes but managed to do so from outside 8" range meaning they could not hurt him with their fearsome overwatch and he promptly cut down 4 of them. The other squad of Wraithguard fared better, I played the "Lightning-fast reactions" stratagem on them which resulted in only 1 getting killed by the Carnifex. The biggest shock was the Carnifex that attacked the damaged Wave Serpent who killed it and caused it to explode. The resulting detonation damaged the Swarmlord, both Carnifexes, both Wraithguard squads, the Termagants and the Spiritseer (who was now barely alive on just one wound).

 

My Turn 2 started with my withdrawing my remaining forces from melee. Fortunately both the Wave Serpent and Wraithguard could continue to fire thanks to their "Fly" and "Implacable Advance" rules. The Hemlock flew towards the Swarmlord while my Avengers and remaining Wave Serpents jockeyed for position to target the nearest Fex. My Farseer managed to Doom the Carnifex in front of the Dark Reapers but the Shadow in the Warp prevented me from casting any more psychic powers. The Hemlock fired at the Swarmlord but between Catalyst and his 4++ invulnerable save, I only caused 3 wounds. The Wraithguard fired at the Fex who had attacked them and killed it which the one surviving Wraithguard with D-scythe managed to put a single wound on the Swarmlord in revenge for his fallen friends. The Reapers and Avengers managed to kill the Carnifex that had got close to the firebase meaning that I had managed to take down half of the Big bugs. The bad news was that the remainder were now all in position to charge my remaining forces.

[Karhedron]

Turn 3

 

The Nids surged forwards, looking for a decisive strike. Both sides had taken significant casualties at this point but the battle hung in the balance and it was clear that all would hinge on this turn. The Swarmlord moved towards the Wraithguard with cannons while Old One lumbered up to the survivor of the D-scythe squad. The last 2 Carnifexes moved towards my firebase with the furthest one Advancing in the hope of using Onslaught to pull off a charge. In the psychic phase, the Swarmlord once again cast Catalyst on himself. The Farseer managed to Deny Onslaught though meaning the Carnifex in the centre that had Advanced would not be able to charge this turn. The Swarmlord had moved out of synapse range of his shooty units by this point meaning both reverted to instinctive behaviour and fired at the Rangers, wiping them out. The termagants and Swarmlord charged the Wraithguard with Cannons and the Spiritseer, wiping them out. Old One charged the Wraithguard with D-scythe who managed to put 2 wounds on the mutated Carnifex with overwatch before being crushed. In the centre, the Carnifex that had not advanced charged the Wave Serpent and badly damaged it, leaving it on just 1 wound.  Despite losing my Wraithguard, the line had held and I had enough firepower left to hurt the remaining bugs, it would all depend on my shooting.

 

In my turn, the damaged Wave Serpent withdrew from combat and limped towards an objective marker near the centre of the table that had been largely ignored thus far. My other Wave Serpent zoomed off and Advanced to claim the Objective on my left flank. My Autarch flew out to challenge the Swarmlord while the Farseer shuffled back so as to be out of range of Deny the Witch. The Hemlock flex back towards the centre of the board. In my psychic phase, the Farseer cast Guide on the Dark Reapers and Doom on the closest Carnifex. My firing phase was everything I hoped it would be, the Avengers and Wave Serpents killed the Doomed Carnifex while the Reapers slew the more distant one. The Hemlock fired and took half the wounds off the Exocrene. Lastly the Fire Prisms linked fire one more time and badly wounded the Swarmlord. In a final act of heroism, the Autarch charged the Swarmlord and finished off the massive beast with his laser lance.

 

We decided to call it an Eldar victory at the end of Turn 3. The Eldar had 3 of the 4 objectives as well as First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker. I still had enough units left to fight effectively while the Nids just had 2 biovores, a wounded Exocrene and a handful of Termagants.

[Karhedron]

Summary

 

That went pretty well, all things considered. When a CC army like Nids gets the first turn, you know it is going to be an uphill struggle as you have one less turn to soften them up before they reach your lines. Fortunately Eldar combine enough firepower and mobility to get the job done (although there were a few close squeaks). All the elements of the army functioned well so it is hard to learn from mistakes in this instance.

 

My own mistakes were in forgetting my own rules (always a risk when you take a new codex out for a spin). I forgot that Path of Command let me regenerate spent CPs on a 6. I forgot that Rangers camelioline cloaks stack with the Alatitoc Trait and I forgot that I could have used the "Forewarned" Stratagem when the Mawloc and Trygon popped up as my Farseer was standing right next to my Dark Reapers.

 

The Rangers were slightly disappointing as they did not really contribute to the battle and just died when shot at. Still, they were only 72 points and they fulfilled my Troop tax for a Battalion. It is always a struggle between putting them somewhere safe and somewhere useful. If I had put them on my far right flank, they would have been safer from shooting (although more vulnerable to assault). At least where they were, they held an objective for a while.

 

All my units worked well but MVP is shared between my Farseer, Autarch and Fire Prisms. My dice were a bit cold this game and I needed the rerolls from the Farseer's Doom and Guide simply to get average results in some cases. Doom plus massed shurican fire can make a mess of almost any target at close range. The Autarch's bubble of rerolling 1s to hit was a great advantage when set up with this sort of firebase and he claimed the heads of the Mawloc and Swarmlord (once they had been suitably softened up). I think the points for a Jetbike and laser lance are well worth it for an Autarch (now that our options are much more limited than they used to be). He has the mobility to support whichever units need his help and he can quickly redeploy to charge an exposed unit if needed.

 

The Fire Prisms were truly awesome. Between Pulsed Laser Fire and Linked Fire, their shooting is phenomenal. They simply delete whatever you point them at. Some games may have an issue in finding large enough targets for them but that was certainly not a problem against Nids. The only thing that survived a full blast was a Swarmlord but he was protected by a 4++ invulnerable save a 5+++ FNP from Catalyst. Without an invulnerable save, anything smaller than a Land Raider is likely to be left as a smoking wreck. Always run these boys in pairs. The Focussed mode is definitely superior to the lance mode as the greater number of shots means you will cause more damage on average against most targets. Lance is only superior against T9 targets and we haven't seen any of those yet.

[Montford]

Thanks for the BatREp Karhedronuk. It was very clearly conveyed what was happening on the board. The only thing I can't figure out is why the Dire Avengers cost so much. What am I missing?

[Karhedron]

Dire Avengers are 12 ppm and that squad was 10 strong. Add in a 20 point Shimmershield and you have 140 points. In the end I didn't need the shimmershield but I thought I might need them to hold out against charges from scary units. A Fex is a big hitter but only has a limited number of attacks. With a shimmershield, I would be unlucky to lose more than 2 Avengers to a charging Fex. This would enable them to hold the line and then withdraw from combat the next turn allowing the rest of my army to blow the Fex away.

 

In the end, I was able to do this using just Wave Serpents and Wraithguard which have the advantage of being able to shoot after they withdraw. I had a layered defense around my shootiest units with the Serpents on the outside, then the WG and finally the Avengers as the last line of defense. In the event, the last line were not needed for defense so I was able to go all out on offense and make best use of their Dire Catapults on Doomed targets.

[Montford]

OK I have figured out how I screwed up. I kept looking at "shuriken catapult" and not "avenger shuriken catapult" on the points list. My apologies!

[Marshal Wolfhart]

Should be 144 points due to the power glaive being 4 pts a pop, though ;)

[Karhedron]

Should be 144 points due to the power glaive being 4 pts a pop, though

 

Still 140 I think. The exarch takes the glaive instead of a Catapult (which also costs 4 points).

[Marshal Wolfhart]

Now i feel stupid. :D

[Karhedron]

Now i feel stupid.

New Codex, new lists, new points.

 

No worries! 

[Aothaine]

Thanks for the great bat rep! I figured the Fire Prisms would be the winners. They are amazingly good but need support. I feel the Tyranid player could have done better if he picked up 1-2 units of Hive Guard for some nice Anti-armor. 

 

Some real heroes in this battle though... that Autarch taking out the Swarmlord is impressive!

[Karhedron]

Yes, the Autarch was excellent for finishing off damaged units although the shooting did most of the heavy lifting. Both the Mawloc and the Swarmlord were down to 2 wounds by the time the Autarch charged. While it could have gone wrong, I gambled that the risk was minimal at that point.

 

He was basically showboating.

 

Some shooting would have helped the Nid player since he could have chosen his targets. As it was, his heavy hitters had to fight their way through a screen of Serpents and Wraithguard to get at the units that were doing the most damage. Even with first turn, they could hit quite hard enough to get through the shell which meant the Fire Prisms and Reapers kept firing all game and took a heavy toll on the big bugs.

 

It looks to me like CC-heavy armies are very difficult to play in 8th. Withdrawing from combat has made CC excessively risky and low-reward for the attacker. All the defender needs are some units that can absorb a few nasty charges and some units that can shoot back hard enough to put down the attackers before they get a second swing. Eldar do well at both.

 

It will be interesting to see how they fare against more balanced or shooty opponents.

[Aothaine]

It looks to me like CC-heavy armies are very difficult to play in 8th. Withdrawing from combat has made CC excessively risky and low-reward for the attacker. All the defender needs are some units that can absorb a few nasty charges and some units that can shoot back hard enough to put down the attackers before they get a second swing. Eldar do well at both.

 

It will be interesting to see how they fare against more balanced or shooty opponents.

 

For sure. Close combat is in a real rough patch right now. Only things that I have seen do decently well are the Death Guard Death Shroud with Typhus and The Swarmlord drop podding in and assaulting turn one with catalyst. 

 

I wonder if Chapter Approved is going to focus on this at all. If not, it is going to be rough going for melee based factions.

[Karhedron]

I am not getting my hopes up for a balanced solution to the CC problem. Looking at units like Beserkers, the approach seems to have been to load up special rules on dedicated CC units so that they can deliver a massive wallop of damage on the turn they charge. Banshees are similar to some extent with a massive charge range and ignoring overwatch but neither solves the problem of what happens after they charge.

 

Assault armies need impressive co-ordination to work. The CC player needs to assault sufficient enemy units that if the enemy withdraws, a large proportion of his army is going to be neutered by the inability to shoot. The trouble is that there are too many armies that can get around this. Any army with skimmers can withdraw with minimal penalty. Ultramarines can withdraw and still shoot with a -1 penalty (tolerable on BS3+ troops).

 

Nids seem to have the same problem. Their traits and upgrades allow them to get into assault quicker and do more damage when they are there but the problem still remains that if they fail to break through on the charge, they are probably going to lose.

 

3rd-7th editions had assault as a grinding attrition with both sides locked in place until one side was broken or destroyed. Now we have a situation where CC is a fleeting occurrence with units either breaking the enemy on a glorious charge or being kited and then blasted to oblivion by nearby shooty units in the following turn.

 

With assault being so all-or-nothing it makes it hard to include CC units in a balanced combined-arms force. Why would you invest in melee troops when you can invest in more guns to make CC even less attractive for the opponent? CC units seem to work best the way I used my Auatarch (and how my opponent used the Swarmlord) to finish off weakened units. I am not convinced they work as the speartip.

[Aothaine]

I am not getting my hopes up for a balanced solution to the CC problem. Looking at units like Beserkers, the approach seems to have been to load up special rules on dedicated CC units so that they can deliver a massive wallop of damage on the turn they charge. Banshees are similar to some extent with a massive charge range and ignoring overwatch but neither solves the problem of what happens after they charge.

 

Assault armies need impressive co-ordination to work. The CC player needs to assault sufficient enemy units that if the enemy withdraws, a large proportion of his army is going to be neutered by the inability to shoot. The trouble is that there are too many armies that can get around this. Any army with skimmers can withdraw with minimal penalty. Ultramarines can withdraw and still shoot with a -1 penalty (tolerable on BS3+ troops).

 

Nids seem to have the same problem. Their traits and upgrades allow them to get into assault quicker and do more damage when they are there but the problem still remains that if they fail to break through on the charge, they are probably going to lose.

 

3rd-7th editions had assault as a grinding attrition with both sides locked in place until one side was broken or destroyed. Now we have a situation where CC is a fleeting occurrence with units either breaking the enemy on a glorious charge or being kited and then blasted to oblivion by nearby shooty units in the following turn.

 

With assault being so all-or-nothing it makes it hard to include CC units in a balanced combined-arms force. Why would you invest in melee troops when you can invest in more guns to make CC even less attractive for the opponent? CC units seem to work best the way I used my Auatarch (and how my opponent used the Swarmlord) to finish off weakened units. I am not convinced they work as the speartip.

 

 

I think this is where assaulting with vehicles comes in. Specifically Chaos. They have flying daemons and heldrakes. I'm working on an interesting list that uses the khorne dogs in my daemon detatchment and the combi-plas terminators in conjunction with quite a few other things. It is looking to be real juicy. So you have the hel drakes assault the back lines while the dogs tie up the front so your opponent can't fall back far and even if they do there is no reason to because most of the other units are locked in combat with the heldrakes.