Death By Die: New Eldar vs Tau Batrep! 2.5k

Eldar vs Tau Batrep, plus a little more action from Tredegar Reavers Monday night!

And so my pointy eared friend Alun has picked himself up the new Codex Eldar, and challanged the Tau of my caste, the Tee'emen' Tau to a game. 2.5k, which was courageous considering the 3 hours we had to play and set up! We rolled for mission and got the Scouring, I only had two units from fast attack but 5 troops, so I'd have some chance even though none were that protected. Alun won the roll to deploy first, so I set up to counter this. I then stole the initiative!

Aluns list was this.

Farseer - Singing Spear, Runes of Witnessing
10 Warlocks
Illic Nightspear
10 Dire Avengers - Exarch with power weapon and shimmershield
10 Rangers - upgraded to Pathfinders due to Illic
10 Fire Dragons - Exarch with Firepike and Fast Shot - attached Wave Serpent
6 Striking Scorpions - Exarch with Scorpions Claw, Crushing Blow
5 Dark Reapers - Exarch with Tempest Launcher and Fast Shot
Aegis Defence Line with Quad Gun
Succubi - Agoniser, Haywire Grenades
8 Kabalite Warriors
9 Incubi - Klaivex with Demi-klaives, Onslaught - attached Raider with Dark Lance

Mine was...

Tau Commander

Ethereal

Fireblade

8 markerlight drons

10 pathfinders

Riptide

10 firewarriors

10 firewarrios with devilfish

2 x 6 of firewarriors

10 kroot with shaper and Krootox

3 crisis suits

2 x 6 stealth teams

2 hammerheads, one with Longstrike

broadside

I think thats it anyway!

My first turn consisted of very little moving, and making sure the Dark Reapers died. These worried me the most as their firepower can damage some of my important elements of my army. Many units worth later, and they're dead. First blood! The rest of my fire kills off 7 warlocks accompanying the farseer, leaving just the farseer himself and 3 warlocks. Not bad! This would stunt the psychic powers a little.

No Dark Reapers!

The next two turns sees some fire dragons disembark out of their wave serpent, and taking three of my stealth team out situated nearby. Unable to kill many they then take four wounds off my riptide the next turn... yikes! My pathfinders also come under fire from the advancing dire avengers and fail a morale check and run off, thats no good! My Riptide fires a heated Ion Accelerator shot at them, but due to the shimmershield invun and the Farseers Fortune only one dies from the riptide and a couple of fire warrior squads. Thats harsh! My other stealth team on the left flank continue to harrass the enemy, cutting down a couple of scorpians lurking behind an aegis defence line.

My allies fail to arrive, a Crisis team and a Kroot squad, but Aluns Dark Eldar allies come on and make an impact after I'd finally managed to wipe out the Dire Avengers, but it took a lot of firepower! Incubi burst out of their raider and charge into a Firewarrior squad with my ethereal, killing them easily. I manage to whittle them down, but due to Fortune once again there are still five... Eldar are hard to kill if they get that! Elsewhere our vehicles don't do an awful lot. Aluns vehicles fail to hit anything, and mine don't do much wounding.

After being left with one wound, the riptide manages to kill one of the fire dragons and charges into them, hoping to squish them both. Alun rolls overwatch... 6 6. One fails to wound.. but I fail the invun on the other and the riptide goes down... bugger! The dragons then charge into a 6 man fire warrior squad, but my crisis team arrive, kills one and the other tries to run, but I luckily catch him and he's dead. Meanwhile at the four point objective in the middle of the board the surviving incubi issue a charge, but due to my Grav Inhibitor drone he fails it and doesn't make it into combat. We have to call the game there, and Aluns incubi are a hairs breadth away from the 3 inches they need to be withing the objective, Alun suggests rolling to see if they're within range and loses the dice roll, giving me a win. However I prefer to call it a draw, as we don't know how the fifth turn would have turned out and it was a pretty close affair, I can let the tiniest of measurements get me a win!

I thought I'd get Aluns take on the new Eldar Codex so he sent me this...

"Well, as always, finding the correct synergy is key still in the Eldar codex; as an example, losing my Dark Reapers in the first turn severly hampered my initial plan, as that part of the synergy was lost. However, if you build your list correctly, you have what I would call a 'supporting synergy' - meaning, despite the loss, I still had enough potential to come back. Psychic powers are impressive to say the least, the only downside was that you have roll; so much for being the greatest psykers, eh? Though, one of the best part of the powers is that they now work on -friendly- models; no 'Codex: Eldar' nonsense, just friendly. This helped immensely in regards to helping my Incubi survive (I took Dark Eldar allies, who aided to the synergy outstandingly). I wouldn't even say I took a competitive list, but it was a 'strong' list in the regards that it could still do feasibly well; plus, it showed that you DON'T need a Wraithknight to win your games if you use Eldar. But, first thoughts? Great codex; I'm looking forwards to using some of the other units that I haven't tried, such as the Phoenix Lords (though only in large games) and maybe the new fliers and Wraith units at some point."

Fair play it was a great game, and the new Codex gives the Eldar some great little tricks to use, particularly good are the Striking Scorpians, even tho they played little part in this battle getting infiltrate and move through cover is amazing! Hopefully I'll have some more games against them soon.

Onwards, and we have Louis and Jordan with an Imperial Guard and Space Wolf combo against Chris and Andrew who fielded Khorne and Nurgle lists. I've no idea who won but it looked absolutely brutal!

Also being played was No Quarter, the pirate game Huw has created.

Please watch your eyes as miniature nudity is coming up! Huw has sculpted all of these and cast them himself, the dirty little bugger! They look hilariously good though!