Tuesday 11 June 2013

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!


More ingame action


Yes, a lot of shenanigans go on in this game, STD's are pivotal!


More action happening this time indoors, here we see two floor plans for buildings. 


Watch your eyes...


Well, I can't even comment on that guy! If you're intrigued with No Quarter Huw has set up a page on facebook... Scurvy Dog

Go have a look! I'll be back soon with some more goodness, so see you all again!

Sunday 9 June 2013

Batrep SM vs IMPGUARD.... Chairman vs Chairman!

I apologize for a lack of blogging lately, but Big Kev's been a busy lad! Heres a battle report from last weeks club night, and its a special one! My opponent this week is the incredibly awesome Byron who is the chairman for the Crow Valley Crusaders who are based in Cwmbran. We fancied a nice big battle so 3000pts were decided and army lists made! I had no idea what Byron was going to take, he'd mentioned a lot of armies so I decided to just take what I fanced and be versatile. He did however mention a Caestus Assault Ram.... He then went on to tell me the rules and I have to be honest, I was concerned!  The day of the battle came and I discovered an Imperial Guard force with Dark Angels allies. This was going to be brutal! Deployment below!


I set up first, eager to get a round of shooting in before the Guard could send a barrage my way. Sternguard dropped down toting combi meltas, and managed to blow up 2 Leman Russ tanks. First blood and some of the enemy firepower gone, relief! I managed to take out one Chimera but that was my first turn. Byron punised my sternguard and wiped them out with some veteran firepower who had disembarked from a nearby chimera. The Executioners spat death and 5 tactical marines (who were the only ones they could see) died, the ruins they sheltered in failing to save them Elsewhere however I was relatively unharmed.


My reserves failed to come on although I was able to do a little more damage the the IG tanks, although nothing blowing up I did cause some hullpoints here and there. I did manage to blow one chimera up however when the vindicator aimed its demolisher cannon at it, but out popped more veterans! Byrons reserves came on, a Valkyrie and... gulp... the Assault Ram! Bryon rammed my Land Raider for a ST10 hit and getting to roll 2 dice picking the highest... but luckily for me he rolled two fours... just a glance! The meltashot did fry a couple of my devastators though, ouch! 


Turn three sees my flyers come into play, the twin linked multi melta on my stormraven blowing up the Assault Ram... no wait, it missed! Even twinlinked I failed to hit the DA flyer, although the storm talon did roll three penetrations against the valkyie... and Bryon chose to evade and made all three Jink saves! At least it would be snap firing next turn!  Byron then got out his Deathwing, 10 strong with a Chaplain and assaulted my Land Raider wrecking it with their ThunderHammers. We had a problem arise here as we didn't know if the unit inside the LR was destroying or trapped, as it doesn't really specify in the rules. Byron had set up his termies to encircle the tank and covering all the doors, but because the vehicle hadn't exploded it didn't say if the unit inside were destroyed or not. We ruled that if the vehicle wasn't blown up they would be fine if they could escape the tank in a future turn. 

In my turn I managed to finish off the two executioners and whittle the termies down so I could escape the Leman Russ wreck in the following turn. 6 Termies killed by pretty much my entire army! Byron then charged headlong at my dreadnought with the Terminators and Chaplain and destroying it, following up into my tactical squad that was supporting it. After the Dread had killed one and overwatch another, only two were left and not many tanks. The Assault Ram hurtles into my dreadnought who had previously killed the veterans from the blown up chimera, blowing the dread up where it joins the wrecked vindicator, melta holes covering its chassis.


The tactical squad manage to hold on against the Chaplain and last Termie and cause two wounds, just about finishing off the Deathwing and leaving the chaplain on one wound. At this point with closing time approaching myself and Byron call it a game, I'd managed to pull off a win mainly due to Byron not having the best of luck when it came to dice rolls. Score wise I have no idea what it was, but Byron had little left whereas I still had a decent amount on the table. If Byrons dice had been a little kinder I can see the game being really close, probably me getting a loss! It was a great game though and Byron was a great opponent. Hopefully he'll want a rematch sometime and try to get his revenge!

In other wargaming news I do have a little side project as I step into the world of Fantasy... I shan't tell you what army yet but you may be able to hear some gutteral braying in the distance.... This weeks club game is against the Elf boy himseld Alun, 2.5k pts and I'm using ALL of my Tau... should be interesting as I think he's using the new Eldar codex. Report up in the week, but thats all for now!