Thursday, May 6, 2010

Playing Eldar: Results of the First Outing

Lucas came to the game with Ghazkull, some bikers, lootas, a large Nobz squad, and several boyz squads mounted up in trukks. He informed me that he only brought 1500 points, so I did some manipulation to the list to trim it down. I removed the harlequins, falcon, and one of the guardian jetbike units. I used the points I had left over to increase the number of jetbikes in the remaining unit.


The main goal with the list is to stay maneuverable, reserve the jetbikes to keep them safe and let them do some harassment and objective capturing late game.

We ended up with table quarters and annihilation for our mission. Lucas won the rolloff and gave his lootas the protection of the top floor of a building and deployed the rest of his forces forward. I managed to get a good bit of cover in my corner as well and kept the grav-tanks mostly out of line of sight.

Turn 1:

Lucas moved his units forward, pushing his trukks along the long table edge in his deployment zone. His Lootas shot at one of the vypers that they could see and managed to immobilize it. His koptas shot at a wraithlord, but didn't manage to do much. That was the extent of his turn, as the rest of his units lacked enough range to get anything done.

In retaliation, I jumped the remaining vypers out over their cover to shoot up some of the transports, and I moved flat-out with one of my wave serpents in order to redirect his trukks. The other wave serpent moved up to support the wraithlords with the bright lance.

My shooting phase didn't see many casualties inflicted. I shot up one of the trukks with a vyper and managed to not wound very many orks in the wreckage. The serpent and wraithlords unloaded their long-range weaponry into the koptas and killed a couple of them, forcing a morale test. The group ran off about 16 inches very close to his board edge.

turn 2:

Lucas's koptas regrouped and moved forward a few inches to get into a firing lane. His Nobz marched forward, very much ready to move in on my Wraithlords in the next turn with the use of WAAAGH. He continued to move his other Trukk around and parked it between the wreckage and terrain in that region. Both of his Boyz squads wer sitting dangerously close to his long table edge. He used his lootas once more to fire at a vyper and managed to wreck it. His trukk fired at the other one and failed to do anything significant.

With his army exposed on a couple of flanks, I made my move. The jetbike squad remained in reserves, helping my plan along nicely. The farseer guided the accompanying dire avengers and doomed the Nobz squad. Both wave serpents moved forward, the one by the wraithlord parked itself with an impassable building nearby to protect it, and the other inched forward to take aim at the other trukk with all its weapons. The Wraithlords walked forward to provide some support fire. The dire avengers disembarked behind their wave serpent, using the hull to block most of the assault angles. They had a wraithlord on the right side to block the Nobz advance and a small sliver on the left where only a single enemy model could engage.

The ensuing bladestorm killed off 5 Nobz from his 15-man squad. The wraithlords split their fire a bit, one supporting the dire avengers, and the other finishing off the koptas before they could close. The remaining wave serpent hit the last trukk with its bright lance and caused a ramshackle roll. The trukk careened, but was surrounded by terrain so only moved about an inch before exploding. Theexplosion worked heavily in my favor and killed off several boyz, forcing a leadership check. Said check failed, and Lucas's squad ran off the table.

Turn 3:

Lucas made a serious effort to even the score in this turn. His shooting finished off all the vypers after his units closed around my dire avengers and wraithlords. The WAAAGH allowed him to easily get to one wraithlord and the wave serpent with his Nobz, and his bikers circled around to hit the dire avengers in that small sliver by the building. The assault phase saw my losing 1 dire avenger and taking out a single warbiker. The wave serpent was taken out by a power klaw with some nice hit rolls. I killed off a nob with the wraithlord, but got overwhelmed by the attacks from ghazkull in retaliation.

In my turn, the jetbikes came on, and they turboboosted on the far side in an effort to pin down the lootas. the rest of his army was walking or tied up, so this seemed like the safe choice. I moved my remaining wave serpent up on the boyz squad which had just moved out of cover to try and charge. I deployed the avengers back so that they could not be charged in the next turn and continued to use the wave serpent as an assault shield.I moved my remaining wraithlord up to limit ghazkull's attacks back on me by moving to the far side of his squad. I unleshed some dual flamers to ignore their armor and took out a couple more models. Bladestorm from the second DA squad eliminated the boyz. I assaulted with the wraithlord to tie up the nobz so my other avengers could get free from combat this turn. That plan was a success. The wraithlord took two wounds, killed a nob, and held in combat while ghazkull piled in. The power weapon on the DAs took down the remaining bikes with some awesome rolls, and the DAs moved around the nearby combat.

Turn 4:

Without much to shoot at, the lootas unloaded on my wave serpent and came up empty. His nobz defeated my wraithlord heandily now that ghazkull was in the fray.

On my turn, I moved the jetbikes forward to the edge of the ruin that the lootas were in and remebarked the full DA squad in their wave serpent. I used the farseer's DA squad to get some more pot-shots on the nobz. This was a poor decision, as I likely could have made enough room to evade assault in the next turn, but I was curious to see how they would perform in close combat and I had eliminated most of the threats to my last wave serpent.

My jetbikes roasted the lootas with destructor and shuriken fire. At the end of the shooting phase, only a single loota remained, and he passed his morale test. My bladestorm from the dwindled DA squad killed off a couple of nobz, and then i charged. My attacks in close combat didn't bear any fruit, but I fortuantely didn't receive much retaliation from the nobz this turn. My jetbikes assaulted the last loota, and all of them failed to inflict any wounds (except for the one who crashed into the ruin as he charged and wounded himself) The loota killed off a single biker and won combat by 1. I failed my leadership test by rolling a ten, and then proceeded to get sweeping advanced by the initiative 2 ork. That oen didn't go as planned...

Turn 5

With basically 2 units remaining, Lucas didn't have very many choices. His loota unloaded on the wave serpent and did nothing. his nobz ended up wiping out my farseer and dire avengers without losing any more models.

I moved my wave serpent 12 inches to keep away from the nobz and sniped the last loota out of the building with the bright lance.

In the end, I won 8 kill points to 6, and it was a huge learning experience. The model count remaining was 4 nobz and ghazkull on his side, and then the wave serpent, dire avengers, and immobilized vyper on my side. Fire Dragons would have been hugely beneficial, especially against those nobz, so I'm happy the ones I ordered have finally come in.

7 comments:

  1. Good win. I'm curious how he had his big Nobz outfitted - I assume he had a Doc, as I imagine the carnage with Guided Bladestorm on a Doomed Unit with two wounds a pop would have been worse.

    It's interesting you chose to take out the Harlequins. I think that was the right choice, and Eldar do okay without dedicated counter-attack units, though I admit I loved my Harlequins when I was playing Eldar.

    Brent

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  2. Grats on the win and the fun game, the latter is what counts while you're learning your army.

    That Ork list wasn't exactly optimal itself. Nobs on foot are begging to get avoided and shot up and Trukks are way too fragile to rely upon. If he had shoved them all in Battlewagons, you'd be missing those Fire Dragons a lot more :P

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  3. Hopefully Lukas has learned a bit about target priority. Those Vypers are annoying, but only put out 4x S6 shots and only 2 should hit. Orks have the bodies to accept that level of casualties. The real threat is the guys in the Wave Serpents. The Lootas should have been dropping a tank per turn with saturation fire.

    Looks like it was a good learning experience for both sides. Cheers for the battle report!

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  4. @Brent, the unit did in fact have a painboy which kept me from inflicting too many wounds as my squad size diminished. I got a very good set of rolls on the first bladestorm to take out 5 nobs in the first set.

    @Chumbalaya, While his list wasn't optimal, it definitely allowed me to to experience a different game than I normally see. Most of my opponents are in power armor, so I got to see great effect from the dire avengers and mass of strength 6 shots. Lucas has a couple of Battlewagons that he'll be adding to future lists. Hopefully we'll be able to jump up to a larger points value soon.

    I have managed to play another couple of games since then, and have some more insight into the units. I love the wraithlord model, but it doesn't mesh well with the mechanized and mounted forces I want to run, so in future games, they will probably sit out more than they participate. I'll have to get my last wave serpent built up so that I can replace some of the lost support fire. The output of fire has been good from them, but they force me to play less mobile which downgrades the effectiveness of the rest of the list.

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  5. Absolutely. Babysitting is the second most important reason why Wraithlords are horrible. :)

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  6. ok As an Ork player 2 things I saw wrong nobz only come in 3-10 man squads inculding the painboy also did you wreck the first truck if so you roll on the ramshackel to see what happens.they never just wreck

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  7. Interesting points on the Ork stuff. I will have to take a look over that codex again to familiarize myself with the squad options and special rules. It's not an army I get to play against a lot (mostly I play against dark eldar, tyranids, and stuff in power armor)

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